Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with seven Western Australian representatives from the Big Steps in childcare campaign, all of whom are managers of early childhood education centres in the Perth metropolitan area. They talked to me about the critical need to ensure the provision of professional wages for professional people in this industry. The Big Steps in childcare campaign, which is supported by the childcare workers union United Voice, aims to tackle the inequities currently present in the childcare industry and to thereby stop droves of childcare professionals leaving this industry for better paid, lower stress, lower responsibility jobs.

The people I met shared with me their commitment to the essential work of early years learning and development education. Their vocational passion and expertise are inspiring, and the time during and after conventional work hours that they commit to their profession is above and beyond the pay and conditions they receive. The group presented me with over 30 letters from other centre managers and workers, all expressing their concerns and requests for the improvement of the early childhood education sector.

They identified some of the contributing factors towards this crisis as follows: low wages paid to employees, usually not much above the minimum award rates, and absence of pay parity between early childhood workers and school education sectors. The average salary for childcare centre managers in Australia is just over $52,000 a year. For a principal of a small primary school it is $113,000. In WA a first year state school teacher will be on over $55,000 plus allowances compared to an annual salary of around $34,000 for a certificate III childcare worker. Other factors include the lack of opportunities for career progression, expectations on workers to perform unpaid labour and lack of adequate programming and staff development time.

The WA representatives I met with explained to me that they will be expected to implement the new early childhood national curriculum in their centres but will not get the same, if any, level of training, support and development as school teachers are predicted to receive. It is not acceptable that people in whom we place the responsibility of educating and caring for those among the most vulnerable in our community—our youngest––who enter this profession because of their love for children and for the educational task, are under-recognised and undercompensated for their work.

I was happy to see the support shown by my caucus colleagues when representatives from the Big Steps campaign visited federal parliament last month. Senator Carol Brown spoke in support of the campaign, and I know that many other members of the government are supportive of the cause, including Senator Kate Lundy, who has established the childcare champions group in the Labor caucus. The government is keenly aware of the importance of creating a sustainable and professional childcare sector that can provide affordable and high-quality education and care for Australia's children. For that reason I support further reform and funding to deliver a fair and proper set of working conditions.