Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024. We all know what incredible work early-childhood educators and care workers do. Without their hard work, dedication, love and care for our babies, many of us here today would not be in this job. We could not forge careers without knowing that our babies are in good and reliable hands. Early-childcare education provides children with a worldview beyond that of their own families. It is a space where they can forge their first friendships, make their first social mistakes and learn about themselves in so many different ways. It is a home away from home.

In many cases, children spend a significant amount of their young lives in early-childhood education and care settings, and it is incredibly important to ensure that these places have all they need to provide the best care possible. That starts with properly valuing the work of early-childhood workers, which include educators, teachers, centre managers, cooks, cleaners and many more. Most of them go beyond what is officially required of them, pour their hearts into the job and work long and sometimes unpredictable hours. And yet, their pay is low relative to workers in other sectors, including those with similar qualifications.

These people looking after what is dearest to us—our children, our babies—earning just above the lowest 10 per cent when ranked with other occupations is shameful. It is no wonder then that many people transition to other jobs, which leaves the sector understaffed by the thousands. I therefore appreciate the intention of the bill in raising wages for the early-childhood education and care sector, which will go partly towards addressing these challenges. There is, however, a need to raise wages in the sector long term and to the full extent required to achieve wage parity, which is a 25 per cent increase rather than the 15 per cent before us today.

Unfortunately, the grants program proposed is falling short of what is needed. It will be inaccessible for some of the providers that need the financial support the most. I therefore foreshadow my second reading amendment, which outlines some of these concerns.

First and foremost, through the requirement for childcare subsidy eligibility, the grant program excludes many, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisations. Access to quality early childhood education and care is one of the targets under the beloved Closing the Gap program, the 'gammon gap' program, yet our providers are left out from this much needed equity and sustainability measure. Our workers should have the same opportunity of wage justice as everybody else. How is it that First People's services, the ones you say that you wave the flag for, are the ones getting excluded? Why are you excluding us? Why are our babies never seen to be the priority? After what you've just rambled on for the last two days about—your support for First People—you exclude us in this.

Right now more than 22,900 of our children and young people are removed from their families. The so-called child protection system continues to inflict harm on our families and is the modern form of the stolen generations and an act of genocide which, Labor, you're complicit in—not only Palestine but the ongoing genocide here—by allowing our children to be taken away from their families. Making sure families with small children are properly supported is the first step in tackling this crisis, and childcare services are a really important part of that—not the black ones, according to you. However, how then are our community controlled services not a priority for this scheme? Maybe the Minister for Indigenous Australians can write a letter to your Minister for Education, wake him up a little bit and say, 'Don't forget about us.'

The Productivity Commission's report found that governments continue to fail on their commitments to shared decision-making with First Peoples and supporting the community controlled sector. This has real impacts on our lives and those of our children. Improving outcomes for our communities starts by us self-determining how best to care for and educate our children. Self-determination is about us determining what is best for us. You don't seem to get that. Our community led organisations provide a culturally safe space for our babies to grow and learn. They are not isolated from our families and communities but wrap around them. They have a holistic approach and are central in ensuring our communities can thrive and our babies stay with their families. This is why I am proposing an amendment to the bill to allow for eligibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisations to the program. We know that you don't support that. Shame on you for that.

The proposed program also falls short of supporting smaller providers in general. The program works on a reimbursement basis, where providers have to front up the increased wages for their staff and will get reimbursed later. This poses challenges for many smaller providers—those that run just one or up to a few centres and don't have a huge profit margin. These are exactly the centres that need the financial support, yet many won't be able to apply due to the risk of facing cashflow problems. I therefore have an amendment before the Senate which would allow for upfront payments to be paid for those providers that would otherwise face cashflow challenges hindering them from applying.

Many smaller providers also don't have enterprise agreements in place. I am a huge advocate for safe and supportive workplace conditions and can appreciate the requirement for enterprise agreements to be in place.

In reality, unfortunately, this will exclude providers with small workforces that don't have the necessary information, resourcing and capacity to develop such agreements. These also take time to develop and come into force, and I therefore call on the government to put in place support mechanisms for providers who wish to engage in this process.

Last but not least, the inquiry into this bill made clear that early childhood education and care providers are worried about the sunset provision of the bill and what it will mean beyond June 2028. Providers are rightfully worried that they would be faced with a situation where they would have to increase fees drastically to sustain the higher wages of their staff or reverse the pay increase of their staff, which would likely result in understandably upset staff and risk substantial staff losses. This is a big risk to take, and some providers might instead decide to not apply for the grant at all so as not to be put in that situation. I therefore call on the government to fully fund the pay increase until the Fair Work Commission decision on gender undervaluation is operational and to fully fund the Fair Work Commission decision on early childhood education wages thereafter.

This bill is an important step in the right direction for wage justice in the early childhood education and care sector, but it's important that we get it right. Don't leave Aboriginal childcare services out. I used to be the cook, when I was 17, at Yappera Children's Services. Don't leave us out. We provide a holistic approach. It is very, very important for our communities. You've done the wrong thing in leaving us out of this, and you should fix that. For this program to be inclusive and supportive to those that need it most, we need to start truly valuing the work of those holding our society together and looking after our future generations. Don't leave anyone else out.