Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Faruqi for her discussion on this, and we had a question in estimates about it two weeks ago. I can certainly say that this is a government that respects the role of early educators in the community. We value the role that they play in the community and I think we've demonstrated that by our actions in government, in supporting a pay rise, in our efforts to tackle the workforce shortage that we have underway.

As I said in estimates, there is obviously a collision here with messages that we took to the election, that we intend delivering on, so we will oppose this amendment from Senator Faruqi. But I can assure Senator Faruqi and the public in general that this is a government that respects the role of early educators. Every time I hear Minister Clare talk about this issue, he's very respectful of early educators. I think he has a cousin who's been very good at letting him know what the official job title is. So we're very much respectful of it, but we don't believe that a name change is the appropriate thing to do.