Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Looking at how a nation treats its children, some of the most vulnerable in our society, can be a really proud reflection on us, and that's what I see in this bill, the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025. It recognises the inherent value and rights of children to have high-quality early childhood education and care to make sure that they can have not just the best start in life but the best life possible in this great country we call Australia.

In this bill, the government wants to ensure that we replace the unfair activity test that left children at a disadvantage and instead guarantee three days of subsidised early childhood education and care for the children who need it. It will mean all families will be eligible for at least 72 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care per fortnight regardless of activity levels. Families can still get 100 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care if they meet the various activity requirements or have a valid exemption. This will provide certainty. For those who know, when households are managing their budgets and planning to get their child into early childhood education and care for the first time, having certainty about what is available to you and also the certainty that you'll get the support that you need makes such a difference.

I've seen in my children's lives, as they've now gone on to kindy and primary school, the huge benefits of having access to early childhood education and care. I don't want to make it harder for anyone to get those benefits. It shouldn't come down to whether or not you or the child's parents are working. It should come down to what the needs of the child are. That's exactly what this does. It supports the idea of universal access to early childhood education and care. When I first came to this place in 2018, I spoke about my belief in universal early childhood education and care. I was standing up the back, and I had a few of my colleagues saying, 'Oh, I don't know if that's going to be the right path,' but now here we are legislating down that path.

We know from the Productivity Commission's report that this will enable us to give more benefits to those who need them the most. In the Productivity Commission's report entitled A path to universal early childhood education and care, released in 2024, they said, very clearly, that the children and families most likely to benefit from early childhood education and care were the least likely to attend. Those who are likely to benefit the most were the least likely to walk through the door of their local childcare centre. This bill makes it much more likely that those children will walk through the door, and we're doing it in a way that makes sure that families really benefit in terms of that certainty but also in terms of the finances of a household as, when you have a new child join your household, you have a few pressures.

Let's take the example of a Perth family who might live in Yokine with an average income of, let's say, $90,000, with one person working full time and the other working a casual job. Under the current system that we've had under the Liberals, they would've been eligible for 18 hours per week or 36 hours per fortnight of subsidised early childhood education and care. Under this change, which I hope every member of this parliament will vote for, they will instead be eligible for 36 hours a week, 72 hours a fortnight, and that means something for their bank balance. That means an extra $230 in their household budget per week, or $11,400 per annum. That's the good news for parents living in Yokine, where you've got one working and the other doing a casual job. It's so much better for the kids. There is what we know from the experts. Jay Weatherill, once a South Australian but these days a proud Western Australian, says: 'Early childhood education is a fundamental building block for children's cognitive, social and emotional development. Together with the care and guidance they get at home, attending child care and kinder supports children's development and gets them school ready. Early childhood education is the great equaliser.' I couldn't agree more.

This bill also delivers on the obligations that many nations, including Australia, have under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I draw members' attention to the explanatory memorandum, which clearly outlines that this delivers on our obligations:

… to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child care services and facilities.

Further, it notes:

The Bill promotes the rights of parents and children, and the best interest of children, by providing greater subsidisation of the costs of ECEC.

That is something Australia can stand proud of on the world stage.

We then come to the practical things this government has done to make sure we have the workforce that we need to deliver on early childhood education and care objectives and go towards that universal system. I've been fortunate to go to Goodstart Early Learning in East Perth with the President of the Senate to talk to educators about how they've benefited. They said that it has made a serious difference both in retention and recruitment. I heard the same story when I went and read a story to the students at the Marjorie Mann centre in Mount Lawley, a great early childhood education centre that's been a proud part of the Perth electorate for some 40-plus years. I heard the same story when I went with the Minister for Early Childhood Education to Buttercups in Northbridge, where we got to congratulate some of the workers who had recently received awards for their outstanding work in educational leadership through early childhood and to hear about how investing in them had helped with the professionalisation of their profession and enabled people who otherwise might have gone on to do other things because they couldn't afford to stay in the profession to stay in the job that they love. We hear it time and time again.

I'm also proud of being a very strong advocate for the rebuilding of the JHUB in Yokine, in my electorate. JHUB is the centre for the Jewish community in Western Australia. They've had the foresight to include in that JHUB some 120 places in that early childhood education and care centre to make sure we continue to cater for the needs of families in my local community.

I want to go to something that hit my inbox at 6.48 pm, as I was sitting here about to give my speech. It was a media release from Dr Anne Aly, the Minister for Early Childhood Education, the Minister for Youth and the Minister assisting the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I think it's worth putting some of this into Hansard. We saw the shadow spokesperson from the opposition benches say today that replacing the activity test was 'fundamentally unfair and divisive'—that removing the activity test was fundamentally unfair and somehow divisive. I don't think there's anything divisive about making sure that children have access to the care and education they need to have the best start in life. We saw, in that same speech, the member say that this government has 'not delivered any new places'. But that's fundamentally untrue. We know that, since this government came to power, there have been 1,083 additional early childhood education and care services put into the sector, with some 30 per cent of those services located outside a major city.

Since the election of the Albanese Labor government, there's been an additional 97,000 children accessing the benefits of early learning. That's great news. But we should go further. That's what this bill is about. It's about going further. It's also about knowing that when something didn't work you've got an obligation to fix it. When the former government introduced the activity test in July of 2018, they promised the reforms would 'enable and encourage greater workforce participation and simplify childhood payments'. What we actually saw was an increase in the barriers to workforce participation. It made the system more complicated for families. It made it harder for families to access early childhood education and care.

One of the things that makes you proud to be a member of the Australian Labor Party is that our commitment to early childhood education and care isn't just one we have in this place; we also see it in state Labor governments. I want to commend the announcement that was made by Premier Roger Cook of Western Australia just last week. It was a huge commitment to transform early childhood education and care in the great state of Western Australia, which is a nation-leading rollout of free full-time kindergarten for four-year-olds. That is a game changer for parents. It's a game changer for children. It's a game changer introducing more capacity into the early childhood education and care system. It is a trial that will commence, should that government be re-elected, on 8 March this year. It will make an incredible difference. It will also show the way for others. Again, I commend my good friend Roger Cook for making that commitment.

Finally, in concluding my remarks, I want to say that the Commonwealth is stepping up to the plate when it comes to investing in the next generation of Australians. State and territory governments are stepping up to the plate when it comes to delivering, particularly when it comes to kindergarten.

There is also an obligation on local councils. I was deeply disappointed when the City of Perth made the choice—an active decision—to close a childcare centre in the heart of my electorate. They did that purely because they wanted a bit more rent. That was disgraceful. It's something that I think really shows that local governments can sometimes trick themselves into thinking that they are just landlords renting out space. They have an obligation to community service. I'd say to any local government that's thinking of selling off land that's currently used by a childcare centre or closing a childcare centre that they will have strong community opposition to doing that. They can't pass all the responsibility on to the states, the territories and the Commonwealth. Local government has a role to play as well.

I want to commend the work that the City of Vincent does under Mayor Alison Xamon when it comes to leadable early childhood education and care. But, again, I just recognise that the fact that we are putting money in is not an excuse, especially for local governments, to pull money out. We all need to find ways to invest more in this sector, to make sure that every child across the country has opportunity. That's what we're doing as well when it comes to the Commonwealth's investments in building new centres across the country, particularly in regional areas in what are referred to as 'childcare deserts'. I would urge every local government to meet their obligations when it comes to investing in early childhood education and care. I commend the bill to the House.

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