Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a privilege to have the Prime Minister and Dr Anne Aly, the Minister for Youth and Minister for Early Childhood Education, visit the beautiful Sagewood Early Learning facility in Dayton in my electorate of Hasluck last week. Dayton is an area with a large number of young families and first home owners. At Sagewood and so many other centres, it all comes together to give our kids the best start in life to nurture the 90 per cent of brain development that happens in their first five years, nurture the essential social interaction skills and give them a specialist education that prepares them for success in school.

The people who provide all of this are highly skilled and caring and, too often, overlooked. They deserve not just our thanks but to be paid fairly and to be able to pay their own bills, and that's why the Labor government is ensuring they receive a 15 per cent wage increase. That will mean an additional $155 of extra wages by December this year. To make sure the wage rise goes to the pockets of the workers and to protect families from further cost-of-living impacts, we've also put a cap on how much early learning centres can increase their fees, at 4.4 per cent over the next 12 months.

I echo the words of the Prime Minister today in stating that this is good for workers, good for children, good for families and absolutely good for the economy. I applaud this effort and our concern and action to support all workers in this nation, not just the top few.