Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this debate on the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech, I want to focus my contribution on the early childhood education and care sector in Australia. This sector is not only critically important for enabling parents to go to work confident that their children are being cared for and educated well but it is also critically important, as all the academic research shows, for the quality development of Australia's young children, from infancy through to the time they start school.

We have seen an amazing number of backflips from this government. We have seen backflips in education and on a range of matters, but for me the backflip on early childhood education and care is one of the most spectacular. The kind of backflipping we are now seeing from the coalition in relation to early childhood education and care is more spectacular than what we would see from professional acrobats.

Over the past six years, whilst in opposition, the now government went on and on about early childhood education and care. It went on about a number of issues, including the reforms that Labor introduced but primarily the cost of early childhood education and care—blaming Labor for increasing the cost of care to parents. In fact, the truth is that cost to parents came down under Labor, as we changed the inadequate Howard funding arrangements, moving the rebate for parents on out-of-pocket expenses from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. So Labor actually brought down the cost of early childhood education and care in this country. That move by Labor—increasing the rebate of the inadequate John Howard scheme from 30 per cent to 50 per cent—made child care much more affordable for all parents.

When Labor introduced a three-year temporary cap on the indexation of this rebate, the coalition, the then opposition, screamed long and loud and proclaimed that the sky had fallen in. Many MPs and coalition senators spoke in this place about Labor's temporary indexation of the rebate.

I would like to quote from Senator Nash in her speech in this place when she said:

What is extraordinary about this legislation—

meaning the temporary freeze on the rebate—

is that the government—

meaning the Labor government—

are making it harder, not easier, for families to access childcare and to get assistance for childcare fees.

Senator Nash went on to say that the government was doing nothing for families in regional areas. Then she said:

It is quite extraordinary that the government should do this for a savings measure—I think it is predicted to save $86 million over four years. Since when did the working families of this country become the cash cow for this government? We should be assisting families with their childcare expenses, not making it harder.

I can only assume that Senator Nash would still hold true to those comments, made very passionately and very eloquently.

What we saw during the election campaign was that the now Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, went one extraordinary step further by personally signing a letter to childcare services across the country about Labor's freeze on the indexation of the cap. I have not seen Mr Abbott's letter and I am sure it does not let parents know that Labor's cap was a temporary cap and was due to be lifted. But Mr Abbott was then no doubt trying to score political points. Guess what? Here comes the backflip. Once elected, we saw another backflip from this government as Mr Abbott quietly introduced legislation to prevent the indexation from being lifted and in fact further extending the cap until 2017. So the coalition in opposition were going on and on about the cost of early childcare services in this country, yet when they had the opportunity to allow that cap to be lifted as Labor had done, they put a cap on it. So they have in fact made it much harder for working families to continue to afford child care. This will save the government about $100 million.

Interestingly, almost at the same time the government have now asked the Productivity Commission to conduct a public inquiry into what they are now calling the childcare and early learning system to look at it being improved. One of the areas that they have particularly asked the Productivity Commission to report on is that the government are saying that families are struggling to find quality child care and early learning that is flexible and affordable enough to meet their needs so that they can participate in the workforce—affordable, put there by a government which at the same time has extended the cap on the childcare rebate until 2017. So it makes a bit of a mockery of what on the one hand the government is doing and what on the other it is saying.

Again the government has hung its hat on the productivity inquiry, saying it is the biggest reform in the early childhood sector since the early childhood sector started in this country. I would beg to differ. That report again is due to be finalised in October 2014, despite the government saying there is an urgent need. Given the requirements that the report has to lie in the chamber, and so on and so forth, that report will not see the light of day until 2015. The other puzzling piece about the whole productivity inquiry is that the Prime Minister is on the public record as saying there will be no additional funding. He said that before he took the $100 million out. We are going to do this supposed far-reaching reform into early childhood care in this country, yet there is not one additional cent for any of the recommendations that the productivity inquiry is likely to make. That can only lead me to one conclusion: if we are going to broaden the scope of early childhood education and care in this country then parents will be up for more out-of-pocket expenses. I am wondering now if the reason Mr Abbott has frozen that cap on the rebate is to get parents used to paying much more if they want additional services. You cannot take the existing amount of funding and expect it to stretch to a whole new range of services; it is just not possible.

What we have heard from the government since it was elected is that they inherited a mess. I have got to say that Labor inherited a mess in terms of early childhood education and care from the coalition government. When we took office, the early childhood education and care sector was regulated by state and territory governments. That meant we had eight separate pieces of regulation governing early childhood education and care in this sector. That meant that for a two-year-old in Hobart to be cared for and educated there were different child-to-carer ratios, there were different educational outcomes, there were different caring outcomes than for the same two-year-old being cared for in Perth. So it was a mess.

The Labor government introduced much-needed, long overdue and greatly welcomed reforms. We did this in full consultation with the sector, and that was confirmed last week in Senate estimates. Labor embarked on full consultation with all parts of the early childhood education and care sector. There were meetings in every state and territory across the country, and there was an overarching reference committee established. That committee was a true reflection of the sector: there were private representatives and representatives from the charitable sector, there were early childhood providers, there were out-of-school-hours carers, there were Aboriginal organisations, there were unions, there were independent and church based preschools and there were relevant state departments. The reference group was well briefed and had input into the full range of matters under consideration. As I said, there were many, many face-to-face consultations and the opportunity for written submissions. And of course provider peak bodies and other interested groups continued to meet privately with the relevant ministers and the shadow ministers.

This reform—revolutionary, the first of its kind and long overdue—was the national quality framework focused for the first time on the care and education of Australia's youngest children. Why? Because all of the academic research informs us that the early years of a child's life impact critically upon a range of outcomes throughout that child's life. Frank Oberklaid is a renowned early childhood specialist academic whose research, along with a multitude of other studies, indicates:

… the environment experienced by a young child literally sculpts the brain, and establishes the trajectory for long term cognitive and social-emotional outcomes … to improve outcomes in adult life, there needs to be a focus on these critical early years.

This is exactly what Labor's reforms undertook to do, and it is exactly what Labor's reforms actually deliver. Mr Oberklaid goes on to say:

Optimal brain development is dependent upon a positive environment, incorporating factors such as: good nutrition, good health and a nourishing and stimulating environment.

Prior to Labor's national reforms, this positive environment was left to states and territories and differed quite markedly across the country. This is why Labor felt that it was imperative to invest in the early years through increasing the availability of quality preschool for four-year-olds and establishing the national quality framework for all early childhood educators and care providers. This was done in full consultation with state and territory governments through the COAG processes—no backflips and nothing done in secret; what we said is what we did—and we consulted widely.

So from a patchwork of inadequate legislation in states and territories, we developed national legislation and one set of regulations so that for children, wherever they were being cared for and educated across Australia, expectations and outcomes were the same. A national framework focused around three concepts: belonging, being and becoming. A national framework widely endorsed and well received by the early childhood education and care sector. Belonging, being and becoming is a vision for children's learning with outcomes for children from zero to five years.

So the national regulations cover processes for provider approval, they have a ratings scale, they have a process for assessment and they have minimum staffing requirements. They also spell out minimum educational requirements for carers. The sector embraced these reforms. Finally the sector was seen by others—parents and the general community—as a sector staffed by professionals, offering quality education to Australia's youngest children. It was finally seen by others as a fantastic career getting the recognition it deserved, except for one remaining, outstanding and critical area—that is, the wages of early childhood educators.

There is an ongoing and outstanding crisis in early childhood education and care—that is, every week around 180 educators are forced to leave a job they love because they cannot afford to stay. These are educators who develop a relationship with the children that they care for and educate every day. These are educators who care and educate young babies through to children of five years. As the academic research points out, those children need a stable, stimulating environment and not an environment where each week 180 educators leave, not an environment where parents come into a service to find another new face as they hand over their beloved child for a day in a childcare centre. Parents do not want this turnover, and educators do not want it either. But the facts are they simply cannot afford to stay in this career—one they have studied for, one they love and one they devote a significant amount of time to—because the wages are too low.

So let me give you some examples. One of the things Labor did was to bring in qualifications for all levels of educators in a service—and that is appropriate because the academic research tells us it is important. It is important to parents to have the confidence of knowing that the educator caring for their child has some experience behind them and an academic or TAFE qualification. But an educator with a certificate III—that is, the equivalent of a tradesperson—earns just $18.60 per hour. Teachers do not earn much more: about $21 an hour. What Labor did was recognise that and so it established a fund—an early childhood quality fund—and put $300 million in there. It invited services to apply, and services across the country did apply. It was not enough money but it was a start. It would have delivered $3 an hour to that certificate III worker, which would have enabled that certificate III worker to stay in a sector they love.

This is another backflip by this government which, when in opposition, committed itself to the Early Years Quality Fund. It has since reneged and taken another $300 million out of the sector. What educators across this country are asking the Abbott government is: when will they see a decent wage increase? When will they get the recognition they deserve? When will their pay packets be decent enough to enable them to stay in the job they love? We are now months past the election. We are overdue for a commitment. It is time the coalition lived up to at least one commitment it made, instead of backflipping and pocketing $300 million from the early years workforce.