Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on this important piece of legislation, the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025, because few things are more important to my constituents in Werriwa than access to child care. Let me commence by thanking all those wonderful early childhood teachers and workers in the electorate for the wonderful work they do and the care that they have for our children. It is much appreciated, I'm sure, by their parents and caregivers but also by the rest of society, giving children opportunities for education into the future.

I have made many visits to childcare centres in my electorate. One such centre is Organic Seedlings. I've visited them a number of times. I know the staff. They are my friends. I know how much they care about their children and the work that they do every day to give them interesting experiences. They are high-quality staff that are making sure that our littlies get the best start in life. I have a really wonderful and fun piece of artwork that was completed by the children at that childcare centre. It's a butterfly and it has all the children's names on it. it was part of their curriculum looking at the life cycle of a butterfly. I joined their class for a couple of hours one afternoon. It is amazing how these really experienced childcare workers and educators can make that complex scientific information available to littlies, from eight months old to five years old, and they were able to explain to me just exactly what was happening.

That is what is happening in childcare centres all over the country all the time. That's why we need to make sure that all of our children have access to that. We know that the first five years of life is the best time to give them the educational foundation they need. So I very much thank all the childcare workers in my electorate but particularly those who have welcomed me, like Organic Seedlings.

I clearly believe in access and opportunity. Specifically but not exclusively this includes access to good-quality health care, access to quality education, access to good jobs and training, and access to quality government support and help if it's needed. On top of that and especially relevant today, I believe in access to child care. Labor fundamentally believes that every child in Australia deserves the best possible start in life. It is what every parent wants for their child as well. Essential to getting the best start in life is access to early education. That's because we know how important the first few years of learning are. When a child starts kindy, it's vital they don't start behind. This bill will work towards making sure they don't.

Those opposite claim to champion accessible early education and care, but their track record says differently. When the former coalition government introduced the activity test in July 2018, they promised it would simplify childcare payments and encourage greater workforce participation. Instead, the activity test hopelessly failed. It created new barriers to workforce participation and made the childcare system even more complicated. Jay Weatherill of the Minderoo Foundation perhaps summed up the failed activity test best when he said the activity test has always been 'punitive and unfair'. The facts and figures attest to Mr Weatherill's quote. Data from the Department of Education shows the number of children from low-income families accessing child care went down from 32,000 in 2018 to 6,500 in 2019. This is just shameful.

The bill before us thankfully replaces the former coalition government's disastrous activity test with a new three-day guarantee to early education from 5 January 2026. All families will be guaranteed three days or 72 hours of childcare subsidy each fortnight. For families caring for First Nations children, there will be a guaranteed 100 hours of childcare subsidy per fortnight. Families who work, study or train will continue to be eligible for the 100 hours of the childcare subsidy each fortnight. This reform will increase entitlements for over 100,000 families, with 66,700 families expected to be better off in the first full financial year of operation. For example, families earning between $50,000 and $100,000 will save, on average, $1,460 per year. This provides genuine cost-of-living relief for those families, on top of Labor's tax cuts and energy bill assistance.

Crucially, no family will be worse off because of this legislation. The three-day guarantee adds to Labor's impressive record in the area of child care and early education. It builds on cheaper child care, which has cut the cost of early education and care for more than a million families, and builds on our 15 per cent pay rise for early educators. It forms part of a package that establishes a billion-dollar Building Early Education Fund to build and expand early education and care centres in areas of need. Specifically, the fund will build and expand around 160 childhood education and care centres. As a result, there will be around an additional 12,000 ECEC places for Australians in need.

Labor is building a universal early education system. We're improving affordability, boosting supply, increasing accessibility, and recognising and rewarding the vital early childhood education workforce sector. Reforms such as this one are very much in my DNA, and they are in Labor's DNA, and they make me proud to be a member of this Albanese government. We are the party of opportunity, we are the party of access, we're the party that helps out and we're the party committed to making sure that no Australian child is left behind. I commend the bill to the House and thank the minister for all the work they've done, in all sectors of education, making sure that every Australian has the opportunities that they deserve and that the country really needs.

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