Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025, which removes the activity test for early childhood education and care. Child care is important for children and for families. The activity test, which requires that parents are working or studying in order to get subsidised child care, is based on an assumption that early childhood education and care is a benefit for parents but not for kids. But quality care actually benefits kids, especially those from lower socioeconomic families. Quality early childhood education is linked to improved academic achievement, reduced delinquency, increased school completion, higher earnings in adulthood, and improved social and emotional wellbeing. This benefits everyone.

I remember, after having each of my three children, the challenge of looking for a job while still caring for kids full time. It feels like a chicken-and-egg situation: you can't afford to pay for the care unless you have a job, and you can't search for a job, go to interviews or even know how much you'll be able to work until you've secured child care. Thrive by Five's Jay Weatherill points out that the activity test has particularly punished single mothers, casual workers and those looking for work. They get trapped in a cycle where they can't get child care if they don't have a job lined up but can't get a job if they don't have child care lined up.

It's fantastic to have the option of staying home with your kids. But I know how much my kids gained from the stimulation of being in centre based care and how important the workers there were to their development. Educators at my kids' childcare centres taught them things that kept surprising me as a parent. They came home with new knowledge and new ways of resolving conflict—as well as the inevitable new viruses building up their immune systems.

This bill provides a guaranteed minimum of 72 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care per fortnight for all families, regardless of whether mums are working or studying. All households with a total income of $530,000 or less will be able to access some level of subsidised care. This will provide much needed cost-of-living relief for nearly 67,000 families in the first year alone, and lower-income families will save an average of $1,460 per year. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, that guarantee is 100 hours per fortnight, which is aimed at closing the gap in school readiness.

Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC, which is the national voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, calls it a 'game changer' for First Nations babies, meaning that more children will be ready for school and set up for a thriving future. Ms Liddle also refers to wider impacts in the community, with recent studies showing that interventions in early childhood education and care settings with vulnerable children and their families may be the key to reducing youth crime.

I understand that in the short term this will put pressure on the sector, but short-term transitional issues should not prevent good long-term reform like this. We need to be bold and have ambition, rather than only seeing the transitional problems. The transition will need to be managed, but paying early childcare workers more under the laws passed in November will definitely help. It's always a chicken-and-egg situation with supply and demand—if you change one, the other one needs to catch up. But, unless we actually make these bold decisions, then nothing will improve.

This change is supported by the Productivity Commission, the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, the ACCC, Thrive by Five and Early Childhood Australia—all of whom have made important policy contributions to improving outcomes for both families and the economy over the long term. WA's own Minderoo Foundation has pointed out that this could lead to almost 40,000 parents being able to return to work or to increase their hours if they want to. So I join the Parenthood CEO, Georgie Dent, in commending this bill. She says dropping the test is 'a profound win for children, equity and the nation', and I commend this bill to the House.

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