Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the amazing member for Hawke for his question. The member for Hawke gets it. He gets that an investment in early childhood education is an investment in an essential service that parents right across Australia rely on, a service that helps parents, especially women, get back into the workforce, and allows children to access those really transformational benefits of early childhood education and care. That's why the Albanese Labor government has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda, one that is principled on three pillars, underpinned by tackling affordability, supply and accessibility, and workforce stability.

We have made significant progress across all of those three, but especially on affordability. Our cheaper childcare reforms are provided more than one million Australian families with cost-of-living relief by cutting the cost of early learning. Our departmental data shows that a family earning $120,000 a year, accessing 30 hours of early childhood education and care a week, are better off by $2,768 since September 2023. That's more than $2,000 better off because of the policies of this Albanese Labor government. And that's not all: we have linked our historic early childhood wage increase to fee caps so providers can't increase their fees by more than 4.4 per cent in the first year and 4.2 per cent in the second year—lifting workers' wages while putting downward pressure on fees for families.

I am asked if there is anything that could put all of this at risk and leave the families worse off. The risk is that the coalition will take us back to the days of high out-of-pocket expenses, when the cost of early childhood education skyrocketed by a staggering 49 per cent when they were last in government. The opposition don't have a policy, a plan or a vision for families or for early childhood education. Their only plan is $350 billion worth of cuts and a taxpayer funded long lunch. We will invest $1 billion to build early learning in the suburbs and the regions where they need them. We will guarantee every child has access to at least 72 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care per fortnight. We will continue to tackle affordability and out-of-pocket costs. We will ensure that early childhood education workers earn more and keep more of what they earn. Only a Labor government will take action to ensure Australian families have access to quality and affordable early childhood education and care.

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