Mary Doyle (Aston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Why is the Albanese Labor Government delivering a pay rise for early childhood educators, and what has been the response?

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

I thank the awesome member for Aston for her question. Early educators up in the gallery and right across the country are some of the most important workers in this country, but you wouldn't know that from what they're paid. This morning I introduced legislation to help change that, legislation to increase what they're paid by 15 per cent: a 10 per cent pay rise from December this year and a further five per cent from December next year. We've got 30,000 more early educators in Australia today than we had two years ago when we came to office, but the truth is we need more. This 15 per cent pay rise will help everyone that does this essential work now to keep doing it but will also, hopefully, encourage people who love this job but felt like they had to leave it because they couldn't afford to keep doing it to come back and do this again.

Mr Speaker, in your electorate, Jessica, who works at Goodstart in Bellbird Park, said this morning, 'Now that this pay rise is coming through, I can actually stay and do what I love: teach children.' And that's what this is. It's not babysitting; it's education. It's teaching our children.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The minister is going to pause. The member for Cowper has been interjecting all throughout question time. I'm not sure why. He's now going to leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Cowper then left the chamber.

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

This is also important economic reform because more people like Jessica means more children and more parents can take advantage of the life-changing work that they do. This is a pay rise for people like Jessica but, more than that, it is also a price cap to keep prices down for more than a million families right across the country. It's the first step that we need to take to build a truly universal early education system. Soon I'll release the Productivity Commission's final report on this.

More than that, this is about respect: respect for these workers in the gallery today and right across the country, respect for mums and dads and the decisions that they take and respect that the Liberal Party finds hard to must. Last time we did this, they didn't just oppose it. They didn't just vote against it. They actually condemned it. This time, when we announced this pay rise, they said that it would destroy the family unit. Paying people like Jessica, some of the most important and underpaid workers in this country, more should be backed, not bagged. That's what this does; it is a pay rise for workers like Jessica and price caps for parents. If that's not legislation that the Liberal Party should back, I don't know what is.