Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. What has been the response to the Albanese Labor government's decision to lift the wages of early childhood education and care workers?

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the fantastic member for Chisholm for her question. As the Treasurer pointed out, up there in the public gallery today are some of our fantastic early educators, including people who have worked in this sector for 10, 15 and even 20 years. They've been waiting a long time for this and waiting a long time for a government that properly values the work they do in caring for and educating our youngest Australians while their parents go to work, and educating them and preparing them for school.

They deserve more than our thanks. They deserve a pay rise. That's what we're doing, with a 15 per cent pay rise for the more than 200,000 early childhood educators, including the workers who are in the gallery today. The fact is that more often than not they're women—95 per cent of our early educators are women. In addition to the 15 per cent pay rise, we're putting in place a fee cap to keep prices down for the more than one million parents who rely on the work of these essential workers.

When I first got this job I spoke to my cousin, Karen, who's been an early childhood educator for more than 30 years. She gave me three tips: (1) don't say 'kids'—kids are goats—call them children; (2) it's not babysitting; it's early education; and (3) the first five years of a child's life are everything—everything they see, everything they hear, everything they eat, every smile, every book they read and every lesson they get shapes and changes and makes them the person that they become.

On this side of the parliament, we get it. Up there in the crossbench, they get it. But over there in the Liberal Party, they still don't get it. If you need evidence of that, look at the rambling remarks of Senator Gerard Rennick. If you need reminding, he said on the weekend that child care and the work of early educators 'destroys the family unit'. Understand what that means. That's not just a criticism of the work of the early educators in the gallery; that's effectively shaming every single mum in this country for wanting to go back to work when they have kids.

At the last election less than one in three women voted for the Liberal Party, and now you've got Liberal senators effectively shaming Australian women by saying that early education destroys the family unit. This isn't just bonkers; this is flat out wrong. Today he's doubled down and is tweeting the same rubbish again.

Another day and the opposition leader still can't muster a smile, still can't muster the courage to call out these loons in his party room. (Time expired)