Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Early Childhood Education. How is the Albanese Labor government reforming the early childhood education and care sector to support families? Is there anything that could put this at risk and leave Australians worse off?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the wonderful member for Boothby for her question but also because she understands that investment in early childhood education is an investment in our future.

When we came into government it was clear that this was a sector that was in dire need of reform after a decade of neglect. Our reform agenda has three key pillars: tackling affordability, supply and accessibility, and workforce.

We've made significant progress across those three pillars. Over one million Australian families have saved thousands in out-of-pocket costs for early childhood education. We continue to build on that by capping fee increases as part of our wage increase for early childhood workers. Around 200,000 early childhood workers are eligible for a 15 per cent wage increase, and that's had a significant impact on workforce retention. Advertisements for vacancy rates are now down by 22 per cent. Early childhood workers are now earning more and, with our tax cuts, keeping more of what they earn.

Since we came into office, there are now over 97,000 more children in early childhood education, 41,900 more educators in the sector and an increase in supply of more than 1,000 services. Our fee-free TAFE is helping to train more educators, and our workforce package has supported them to access professional development and complete their practicums. We're investing $1 billion to help build the early learning services in the regions and in the suburbs, where children are currently missing out. Our three-day guarantee, which I introduced into parliament yesterday, ensures that every child has access to 72 hours a fortnight of early learning, regardless of their parent's activity.

As I said, we have made significant progress on our reforms—progress working towards our vision of a universal early learning system for every child, for every family and for every community.

I'm also asked about what could put this at risk. The risk is that the coalition threatened to leave families worse off and take us back to the days of higher out-of-pocket expenses—back to the days of low wages and an unsustainable workforce in early childhood education. The coalition does not have a policy, a plan or a vision for families or early childhood education. But, they do have one for CEOs. We'll invest $1 billion in building early learning; they'll spend billions on free lunches for bosses.

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

Before I call the member for Hume, the member for Moncrieff has had a pretty good go with those interjections—around 13 during that answer—so she is now warned.