Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In October last year, I hosted the North Sydney Deliberative Democracy Forum on early childhood education and care. The event brought together 35 randomly selected but demographically representative members of our community, with experts from academia and industry, to discuss the affordability and accessibility of early childhood education and care services right across our country. Their goal was to arrive at a consensus on a policy approach that they wanted to see the federal government pursue to ensure these services are affordable and accessible to everyone. There were lots of ideas that participants supported, including equalising the pay of early childhood educators with primary-school educators and requirements to build early childhood education and care centres alongside new public primary schools. But the core of their final recommendation was that the government should provide universal free or low-cost early childhood education and care services to all children from birth, regardless of their families' financial circumstances.

I can't tell you how pleased I am, then, to say that, with the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025, the government is moving Australia towards my community's final recommendations and aspirations, and we could not be more pleased with this reform. I want to thank everyone who has fought so hard for it over many years. Indeed, when I first announced that I'd run as the independent candidate for North Sydney, it was people who were advocating in this area who were among the first to approach me to ask for my support, and, as a consequence, it was one of our key policy platforms during that campaign. This win, then, is not just for parents but specifically for all children right across the country.

That's because this bill does two really important things. Firstly, it winds back the activity test to ensure that all families have access to 72 hours of subsidised care a fortnight, regardless of how many hours they work, study or volunteer. This is what is known as the three-day guarantee. At the same time, it allows families caring for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children, or those who work, train, study or volunteer for more than 48 hours a fortnight, to have access to 100 hours of subsidised care.

It's not an understatement to say that this reform is incredibly important, as we've known for a long time that, rather than acting as a stimulus for workforce participation, the activity test has been acting as a barrier, particularly for many lower-income families and families with irregular patterns of work. Indeed, the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee itself called the test 'poorly designed' and 'punitive', highlighting the barrier it creates for many parents wanting to participate in the workforce, while research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found no evidence—no evidence—that the test had increased workforce participation. The minister herself noted in her speech that in 2021 only 54 per cent of children in the most disadvantaged areas were enrolled in early childhood education and care, compared with 76 per cent in the highest socioeconomic areas, whilst an Impact Economics and Policy analysis found removing the activity test could allow around 126,000 children from lower-income families to access early childhood education.

Ultimately, although ostensibly designed to encourage work, the activity test has failed, instead excluding many struggling families from access to early childhood education and care for no substantial gain. For this reason, countless researchers, peak bodies, committees and, indeed, many on the crossbench have been calling for the end of this test for years. As Georgie Dent, the CEO of The Parenthood, said:

Removing the Activity Test is the most significant step towards creating truly universal early education and care.

At the heart of the problem with the activity test is the fact that it places the focus on the parents, when, ultimately, many—including myself—argue the focus should be on children and on ensuring every child, regardless of their circumstance, has the same opportunities from the earliest days of their life.

With all that said, I acknowledge some people are struggling to understand why those who ostensibly can afford to pay for it will not be charged under this new reform. But I'm comfortable the reform is absolutely the right thing to do as it essentially aligns our attitudes and the attitudes we have always espoused as a nation when it comes to public education.

As someone who was educated through the public system, I am so proud of that attitude and I will defend it to the death knell as, ultimately, I do not believe a level of education or care a child receives should be based on an accounting declaration, nor should we as a society aspire to create a two-tiered system where those that can afford to pay get access to some form of high-end silver-plated service, while those relying on a public assistance are only offered a white-label experience. As I said, as someone who was public school educated through the seventies and eighties, I think that is what we have created on other levels of education and we should wind that back and get it right for early education and care.

No public school asks you how much your parents work before letting you in the door; rather, it is accepted that no matter where you live or what you live in, or what your parent does, every child in Australia needs and deserves access to an education without having to crunch numbers about their parents' circumstances. But this does represent a major philosophical shift in our approach to early childhood education and care, and some who may have made a lot of money in this space or who just think some people have too much and, therefore, should be paying for it, will be uncomfortable with what I have just said, so I accept it may take time for everyone to convalesce around the idea, even though I think it is brilliant.

Having grown up in a regional community and now representing a wonderfully vibrant and diverse community, I believe communities are their strongest when environments that surround our kids expose them to all sorts of people—to those who have and those who do not have. In addition to all of that, however, this bill will bring us further in line with countries like Italy, Sweden, South Korea, Germany and others, who already operate more universal systems for early childhood education and care, and we know their systems work. In Germany, for example, researchers found the expansion of the government's childcare system to children aged one to three significantly improved the socioemotional development of less advantaged children. In the Nordic countries, which have generous and robust early education and care systems, they consistently rank as the best places in the world to raise children.

But of course, the bill doesn't fix everything. For one thing, the sector has and is still facing a workforce crisis, losing workers to primary education and other careers due to the fact this work is historically poorly paid and supported. While the recent pay rise legislation is a welcome improvement, we do still need to ensure we are investing in workforce training and development, and improving working conditions on an ongoing basis. As it currently stands, around one in four Australians live in a childcare desert, with services few and far between. This leaves many families completely unable to access care for their children, which adds to their overall struggles. This inequity is stark in some regional areas. In this context, I support the efforts to build early childhood education and care centres, especially in rural and regional areas, and to work with communities and not-for-profits to ensure every town has access to the services its citizens need, regardless of whether there are five, 15 or 500 kids in the area.

Finally, although subsidies are important, the out-of-pocket costs for many families, including those in my community of North Sydney, continue to be far too high and often prohibitive. Moving towards a truly universal system with a low out-of-pocket cost for five days of education and care without any form of activity requirement will take some work but it is work that is worth doing. Ultimately, I am only one of literally thousands of voices that have been calling for these changes to early childhood education and care, and I feel for the families that have been struggling to afford these services for years while they waited for the government to act. I was also so drawn to this point of argument because, as a mum of three kids of her own, I really struggled when they were young to get them into the services that they needed. Whether it is here in this place or in the wider community, I will continue to fight for this reform, and, while this is an excellent start, we should go further.

In closing, I want to thank everyone who has engaged so passionately with this issue over the past three years. To my community, who know all too well the challenges of high costs, thank you for sharing your stories and for being prepared to advocate for a program that sought to remove barriers for any child or family based on income, location or class. I encourage you to see this as a positive reform, and to ensure that, no matter the way the election goes in 2025, you back the people who are prepared to deliver this.

To the participants of the North Sydney Deliberative Democracy Forum on Early Childhood Education and Care, thank you for transforming the community's values into policy recommendations. To the researchers and advocates, thank you for fighting so tirelessly for the reforms. This win is yours. You deserve to bask in it. But, finally, to the Minister for Early Childhood Education, the Minister for Youth and Minister Assisting the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Hon. Dr Anne Aly, thank you for finally bringing this to life. I have no doubt that having a cabinet that finally has equal representation of both men and women has been instrumental in getting this reform done, so please keep up the good work. Thank you.

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