Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Improving the life chances of young Australians is a key priority for this government, and I acknowledge the important work done particularly by the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare and the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth. Under this government we have boosted the childcare rebate from 30 to 50 per cent. We have created the mychild.gov.au website. We first rolled out the Australian Early Development Index in 2009, and it will be coming again in 2012.

I would like to acknowledge the work of key peak researchers in this area: Frank Oberklaid, from the Centre for Community Child Health; Matthew Gray, from the Australian Institute of Family Studies; Lance Emerson, from Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth; and Pam Cahir, from Early Childhood Australia.

The Gillard government is committed to evidence based policy making. We know a lot about the importance of early years interventions but we still have much to learn. That is why I would like to pay particular tribute to the team that is running the Early Years Education Research Project: Nichola Coombs, Jeff Borland, Yi-Ping Tseng, Anne Kennedy, Janet Williams-Smith, Dave Glazebrook and Brigid Jordan. This is Australia's first randomised trial of an early childhood program. It has received ethics approval and it is following in the footsteps of the great randomised early childhood evaluations: the Perry Preschool program, the Abecedarian Project and the Early Training Project. It will provide valuable lessons about what works in the early years. It will allow us to improve our policies and it will do it using the most rigorous evaluation methodology available. I wish the team all the best of luck.