Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the amendment on sheet 3064 standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) the Government's economic mismanagement and cost-of-living crisis has led to higher wage bills, and higher utility, rent and grocery bills for providers;

(b) the bill will place further administrative burden on providers, particularly small and medium providers;

(c) the Government's decision to include a workplace instrument in this bill is unnecessary and puts pressure on service providers to unionise their workforce;

(d) the bill will put further financial pressure on providers who will have to cover the majority of the on-costs, cannot increase their fees and have to pay the wages upfront, whilst receiving reimbursement in arrears;

(e) the Government has still not provided all relevant details of the grant program to service providers, which has put further undue stress on service providers, and created confusion within the sector;

(f) the Government has done nothing to address child care deserts and thin markets around the country, and this bill will not increase access for parents who currently have none; and

(g) the bill is a one-off sugar hit, which will only increase inflation and further contribute to current cost-of-living pressures".

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024 legislates a special account to assist with a government funded 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators and teachers. The special account will be used to administer grant funding through the early childhood education and care worker retention payment program.

I do note the bill does not credit any funds to the special account, and we assume appropriation will occur at a later point in the budget process. The bill does not set out what the wage increase will be—however, we know from the media announcement it will be 10 per cent from next month and an additional five per cent in December 2025—nor does the bill include the specific conditions that service providers will need to meet to be eligible. Some conditions have been included in the grant guidelines, but there are some key details that have still not been provided to service providers, and that, obviously, is of concern. The special account is time limited and will cease on 30 June 2028.

The coalition does have several concerns with this policy, but we will not stand in the way of a pay rise for early childhood educators and teachers. I have to say that it was clear to anyone who heard this announcement in August that this was a pre-election sugar hit which perhaps shows that the Albanese government cares more about politics than tackling cost-of-living pressures. The $3.6 billion price tag of this policy will do very little for educators and teachers, and that's because they have to deal with the escalating cost of living under this government—paying the bills; putting food on the table; paying the mortgage or the rent. As all Australians know, the costs are going through the roof under this Labor government. The Prime Minister's claims of a pay increase of up to $155 per week fails to take into account the ongoing cost-of-living crisis which will see much of this wage increase eroded by inflation.

Not so long ago, you could walk into a supermarket, spend $100 and buy a fair amount of the week's shopping for a family. It's difficult now to buy more than a couple of meals for that amount of money. The costs are just horrendous. So many Australians are really suffering.

That, of course, is because the Albanese government has mismanaged the economy to the point where so many families are in crisis. Labor's failure to break the back of inflation means hardworking families are paying higher prices, higher interest rates and higher taxes for longer.

It's not just families struggling with cost-of-living pressures. It's also businesses, and they include, of course, small- and medium-sized early learning providers—providers who are currently weighing up whether this grant program is worth the additional administrative and financial burden.

We are concerned about the lack of transparency from this government which has left providers scratching their heads as to whether they can afford to sign up to the program. The grant guidelines released in October should have given service providers some clarity around the program, but instead they've given rise to more questions than answers in many cases.

Since the announcement in August, the government has been coy about releasing the full details of the scheme, with many basic questions left unanswered—or, in some instances, providers being given a generic response. These providers, particularly small businesses, are really wondering, in some cases, how they are going to keep the doors open, because costs have gone up so much. Less than a month out from the start date, providers are still unsure about how much they will receive, how exactly they will be audited to ensure the funding is appropriately spent and what will happen when the program ends in two years.

There is also a lot of confusion regarding the fee restraint cap of 4.4 per cent in the first year and 4.2 per cent in the second year. While Labor has tried to reassure the sector that they have used appropriate data to get to these figures, many providers are still confused and frustrated about the lack of transparency. During the Senate inquiry into this bill, we heard from several stakeholders who are concerned about financial uncertainty, as the government has still not released the full details of this scheme. That really is not good enough, and, as I say, it creates a lot of uncertainty. The grant program, as I mentioned, imposes a fee cap on providers, but it fails to cover the full cost of the wage rise. So leaving the majority of service providers out of pocket to cover their associated on-costs is a big concern. Now, that's probably not the case for large providers.

That's something that maybe they can deal with, but for small and medium providers, particularly not-for-profits who are just getting by, that really is not an option.

According to the Productivity Commission report released in September, only 13 per cent of providers currently have an enterprise agreement in place. Early childhood educators do an incredible job of caring for and educating our youngest Australians, but we are deeply concerned about the requirement for providers have a workplace instrument in place to be eligible for this program. We believe this is very ideologically driven. This is a classic example of Labor trying to appease the unions. Numerous stakeholders have raised concern about the cost and the administrative burden of implementing a workplace instrument in such a short timeframe, and we know we heard in the Senate inquiry that this is actually not needed to deliver the program. So this is very much driven by ideology and by looking after the unions. It is another example of the government not caring for small and medium businesses.

In particular, Brent Ferguson from the Australian Industry Group told the Senate inquiry:

… forcing an employer to enter into formal workplace agreements to secure funding will impose unnecessary red tape and burden on employers.

He also said:

… this could be achieved by requiring employers to implement a written contractual agreement with their employees to implement wage increases instead of through a formal workplace instrument.

In its submission, the Business Council of Australia also raised concerns about the workplace instrument, saying:

It should be the decision of the ECEC provider as to what is the most appropriate … The complex and time-consuming process of bargaining and agreement making may not always be appropriate.

As I say, we've had a number of concerns raised. I also understand that the Australian Childcare Alliance and P&Cs Qld told us in the inquiry that it would cost thousands of dollars to sign up to the multi-employer agreement or to establish their own agreement across multiple services, which, of course, is another enormous industrial relations burden placed on childcare operators by this government.

The Outside School Hours Council of Australia has sent numerous versions of an IFA to the Department of Education to ensure the document they will be using is acceptable, but they are still waiting to hear whether it's okay. That's just not acceptable. Here is an example of a council of many providers wanting to do the right thing. They're wanting to make sure that the workplace instrument that they enter into is compliant and doesn't give rise to any issues, and the government is not able to provide that sort of information. Given the very shortly lead time—the scheme is just about to start—providers will be placed under the most enormous strain. In fact, it's pretty clear that this was deliberate. The government wanted to do that. The government wanted to do everything it could. Unfortunately, the result of that effort is that it is small and medium early education providers, who do the most incredible job, particularly in rural and regional Australia, that will face the most burden.

I mentioned that I will also be moving a second reading amendment. I want to just outline what that second reading amendment is. While we are not declining to give the bill a second reading, we are asking the Senate to note and endorse that the government's economic mismanagement and cost-of-living crisis has led to higher wage bills and higher utility, rent and grocery bills for childhood education providers. The bill will place further administrative burden on providers, particularly small and medium providers. The government's decision to include a workplace instrument in this bill is unnecessary and puts pressure on service providers to unionise their workforce.

The bill will put further financial pressure on providers, which will have to cover the majority of the on-costs and cannot increase their fees and have to pay the wages upfront whilst receiving reimbursement in arrears—again, another burden.

The second reading amendment also includes a provision that the government has still not provided with relevant details of the grant program to service providers, which has put further undue stress on service providers and created confusion within the sector.

The government has done nothing to address childcare deserts and thin markets around the country, and this bill will not increase access for parents who currently do not have access to a childcare centre. As I mentioned before, the bill is a one-off sugar hit which will only increase inflation, further contributing to current cost-of-living pressures.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Early childhood education in Australia is a system in crisis and requires urgent attention and reform. The government has proposed the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024 in the hope that it can address one of the key issues of our childcare system—that is, acute workforce shortages. The Greens welcome Labor's long-overdue recognition of the importance of early childhood educators, and we congratulate the unions and the sector for their hard-fought advocacy over many years that has shone a spotlight on wage justice for early educators.

This bill is a critical first step, but the government can and must go further. For too long educators have been underpaid and undervalued. They are overworked and burnt out and, as a result, they are leaving the industry in droves. Childcare centres are struggling to fill thousands of educator roles because educators have been forced to find better-paid jobs elsewhere. Let's be clear: educators can't afford to be educators. Australia desperately needs a workforce strategy that continues to build capacity.

So how should a government attract workers to an industry where people are leaving in droves? A decent wage that they can actually live off is a good start, as is ensuring pay parity with educators in primary and secondary schools. These aren't radical propositions. To quote a witness at the wage justice bill inquiry:

It's just not satisfactory that someone can have a degree or a diploma qualification and be delivering education, like their peers in schools, and not be paid at an equal rate.

That was Elizabeth Death, CEO of ELACCA, who celebrated their 10th birthday today. One witness said:

… a teacher is a teacher, whether they work in a school or work in an early childhood centre. They should be paid appropriate professional wages, and there shouldn't be a disparity between the wages paid across sectors.

That was Samantha Page, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia.

Early childhood educators and the unions have fought long and hard for a 25 per cent pay rise, and it's thanks to their tireless efforts that the government is finally starting to value the essential work they do, the work that—let's be frank—mostly women do. Ninety-seven per cent of the early childhood education workforce are women. They do the critical work of educating our kids yet continue to be paid well below other educators at the same or similar levels of responsibility and skills—and with fewer conditions in many cases. Improving early childhood educators' pay is critical to addressing the gender pay gap.

Labor has introduced a bill that would create a special account to fund grants to early childhood education and care providers, who can opt to support a wage increase of 15 per cent for their workers for a limited period of only two years. Quite clearly, a 15 per cent pay bump falls well short of what our educators deserve, what unions in the sector have been calling for and what would bring early childhood educators closer to pay parity with primary and secondary schools. This is a workforce that performs the critical role of educating and caring for our kids in those crucial early years. It is a workforce that is overwhelmingly comprised of women, who continue to take home less than two-thirds of the average weekly adult wage. Even with the government's proposed 15 per cent pay bump, early childhood educators will still be underpaid. While Labor grandstand about their decision to lift wages by 15 per cent, the stark reality is that, even with the pay rise, it would take an educator 31 years to save for a home deposit on an average house—31 years.

During the inquiry into this bill, we heard from witnesses in regional Australia about the challenges of attracting educators due to the lack of affordable and available housing, rising rents and poor conditions across the sector.

We heard that the combined effect of low wages and the housing crisis is only exacerbating the issue of childcare deserts across this country. As one witness, the Isolated Children's Parents Association of Australia, told the wage justice inquiry, rural and remote settings require more than a 15 per cent increase to rectify staffing shortages and to meet the needs of attracting and retaining early childhood education staff to rural and remote areas.

If the government really wants to stop educators from leaving in droves, it must ensure they're paid enough and have suitable workplace conditions to stay. That is why I foreshadow that the Greens will move a Committee of the Whole amendment to increase the worker retention grant from 15 to 25 per cent. We're calling on Labor to give early-years educators the 25 per cent pay rise they deserve and they've been calling for.

Another significant flaw in this bill is that it makes no guarantee of a pay rise beyond June 2028, which has service providers scratching their heads about what happens after that date. While Labor is calling it a pay rise, as it stands it's actually only a two-year grant, or a pay bump. At the inquiry into this bill, I along with the government heard witness after witness provide evidence of the uncertainty over who will cover the costs once the government grant ends. Will it be providers, will it be parents or will it be the government? Why hasn't Labor met union and sector demands for a 25 per cent pay increase and provided certainty beyond June 2028? Will providers make up the shortfall afterwards, or will they pass those costs on to sustain the 15 per cent increase?

This is a major concern right across the sector. As the CEO of ELACCA explained at the wage justice inquiry, it can take many years to build the capacity of a service to deliver really high quality education and care. We need that longevity of our workforce. They need the confirmation that they will be valued and paid much longer than just two years into the future. Another witness, G8, said:

… that lack of certainty was placing us in the difficult position … after two years, of either having to increase our fees to sustain the increased wage costs or—worst-case scenario … reduce the pay rates of our educators to award levels.

Can you imagine that—giving a pay bump to your staff, only to take it back after two years? Where's the wage justice in that?

The Greens want to guarantee that early-childhood educators have well-paid, secure jobs. We want to ensure a sustainable workforce to fill the gaps in childcare deserts. In October I wrote to Labor ministers Jason Clare and Anne Aly, urging them to amend the sunset provision of this bill, to commit to fully funding the educator pay rise beyond 30 June 2028 and to extend it until the Fair Work Commission's decision is operational. Unfortunately, the government's response provided no assurance of funding the pay bump beyond the sunset clause.

This bill was a chance to fill the childcare desert gaps. It was a chance to give long-overdue recognition of our underpaid and overworked workforce. Sadly, this bill falls short. That is why I move the Greens second reading amendment, standing in my name, for the government to fully fund the Fair Work Commission's feminised industry decision and ensure educators get the pay rise beyond the two-year grant period:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to:

ensure that early childhood education and care is universal, free and high-quality across Australia; and

commit to fully funding the outcomes of the Fair Work Commission's gender pay equity research project, including ensuring that educators continue to receive funded pay rises after the 2-year period of the grant program proposed in this bill".

There's no denying that paying educators a decent wage is critical to fixing Australia's early-years education system and closing the gender gap, but so is providing free early-years education, just like primary and secondary schools. Research shows that women in families with children under the age of five have the lowest levels of labour force participation amongst people of prime working age. Many of these women would love to re-engage with work but say caring for children is the main barrier to them re-entering the job market.

Free early-years education makes economic sense. It would allow more parents the chance to return to work, which would increase women's workforce participation and boost Australia's economy. We already know this to be true from the brief moment during COVID when the Morrison government made early child care free. It helped reduce total inflation by over one per cent for that quarter.

Recent research suggests that reforming early-childhood education in Australia to include low-cost or free child care would help increase the size of the economy by $168 billion and allow the government to collect an additional $48 billion in revenue. It sounds like a no-brainer, so why won't the government fully invest in free early-years education? We know that it would boost economic productivity and ease the cost-of-living crisis felt across this country.

That is why I moved the second reading amendment standing in my name to ensure that early-childhood education and care is universal, free and high quality across Australia. I call on Labor to seize this moment to work with the Greens to ensure all children have access to early-childhood education and women have the opportunity to work. Early-childhood educators have fought long and hard for a well-deserved pay rise. It is absolutely clear that this bill is a step in the right direction, but it simply doesn't go far enough. Labor will not fix our broken system with half-hearted measures. If we want high-quality, universal early-years education and care, we must invest in a sustainable workforce and fully invest in our educators. Labor has made a small first step towards recognising educators aren't paid enough, and ow it must commit to going further. Labor must rise to this occasion and pay our educators what they deserve for doing the most important work imaginable: educating and caring for our children.

The Greens have a vision for an equitable and inclusive early-years education workforce. We want to work with Labor to make this transformative change needed to fix our early-years education system and close the gender pay gap. We will remain willing to work together with the government to seize upon the social and economic opportunities of reforming early-childhood education and care in Australia. Let's fix our early-years education system to create one that we can be truly proud of that recognises the extraordinary work of this largely feminised industry of educators and that's universal, high-quality, and accessible. Every child and every family deserves an education.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a really important bill. I will be brief. I will associate myself with the comments of my colleague Senator Hodgins-May and endorse the view of others that this is a bill that takes steps in the right direction. It increases wages by 15 per cent for two years for a really important group of workers in our society. Early childhood education and care workers provide an essential service—infrastructure that gets people to work in a way that a road or a car does. It is essential for our social good. It's essential for our economy.

The first five years of a child's life are a very vital period, and the best investments we can make, out of anything that the government spends on, are in quality, accessible, affordable early-childhood education. US economist James Heckman tells us that a dollar invested in these services returns $7 over the life of a child. He describes those investments as the best way to reduce an economy's deficit. They're especially critical, as we just heard from Senator Thorpe, for our First Nations children and families, and it is vital that we get them right. The spend that we do on those early childhood years cuts incarceration rates. It reduces spending on our jails. It reduces spending on welfare. It means more productive workers and workplaces and happier kids, families, communities and women. It's particularly important to the workforce participation of women, where better—and more—child care drives growth in our economy.

Good child care is underpinned, most importantly, by a settled, experienced, qualified, happy workforce with low turnover that delivers continuity of care for our kids. That means paying people properly and giving people security about their pay and conditions.

It means helping workers who give decades of their working life to childcare work to be able to afford to retire. The Australian system of child care is, at the moment, amongst the most expensive in the world—and that is not because we are paying workers in the sector properly.

The current bill, while it steps in the right direction with improved pay for childcare workers, disappoints on two important points. Firstly, the childcare workforce and their union have been calling for a 25 per cent pay increase—well beyond the 15 per cent on offer in this bill. We know that is what they deserve, as so many witnesses and much evidence to the inquiry into this bill made clear. Fifteen per cent is not enough; it's far from enough to deal with the decades-long underpayment of this skilled and experienced workforce.

Secondly, this pay rise is really, as my colleague said, a pay bump; it is not a secure long-term pay increase. It's a payment for just two years. When did we last give a pay rise to construction workers or miners or truck drivers and tell them it was just for two years? When did we give them a pay rise that wasn't embedded in their working conditions for the long haul? If we told those truck drivers, 'You've got a pay rise for two years', I'm pretty confident that within a day or two this parliament would be surrounded by a bunch of very angry truck drivers—probably led by Senator Sheldon and Senator Sterle—who would see the injustice of making a pay rise that is not guaranteed in the long term. In this feminised industry, that is what we are offering those women—those 97 per cent of workers who are women. You just wouldn't get away with it in a male dominated industry. A government interested in fixing the long-term underpayment of our childcare workforce would not just be offering a pay bump; it would be facing up to the long haul and doing the right thing. We should do for the essential infrastructure workers of our childcare system what we do for truck drivers.

The sustainability and quality of early childhood education and care is inextricably linked with the strength and the sustainability of our workforce, and currently that workforce is in crisis. No-one is arguing about this. Wages are too low, workloads are unmanageable and too high, workforce attrition is extremely high and centres are understaffed. The United Workers Union told the inquiry into this bill that early educators are barely able to survive on the wages they are paid amid the cost-of-living crisis they are enduring. As a result, staff are leaving in droves and the workloads of those who remain, the union told us, are unacceptably high. As many as 30 to 48 per cent of educators leave the sector each year; that's an incredible rate of loss of skilled and experienced workers.

Currently in long day care up to 19 per cent of centres are operating with a staff waiver—that is, they are unable to meet the standards of qualification and ratios for our kids in their care. This puts their development and certainly the workloads of those carers at risk. This especially lets down, as we heard from Senator Thorpe, our First Nations kids, who need appropriate, quality care, with the involvement of local communities in culturally appropriate and locally managed care. It also means too many children cannot be included in all the activities of their local centres because there are not enough carers to look out for and include kids with disability. There are too many childcare deserts in our country towns and too many suburbs of our cities.

We need to fix all this with a decent pay rise for our childcare workforce—a rise that goes beyond 15 per cent to meet the expectations, evidence and case for a 25 per cent rise. This bill is a step in that direction. But we need a lot more. We need affordable, accessible, quality care for all who need it. Our economic future depends on it, our families are looking for it and, more importantly, the healthy future of our kids depends on it.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024, does two really important things: it delivers a long-awaited pay rise for early childhood educators and carers, and it supports families with the cost of living. These are issues that early childhood education and care workers have been campaigning for for many years, and I'm very pleased that, under the Albanese Labor government, they are beginning to get the remuneration and respect that they deserve.

These workers very much deserve our support. The work they do is incredibly important to families, to our economy and of course, most of all, to the kids they care for and educate in their earliest years. On that basis I commend the bill to the chamber.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. We have three second reading amendments to be put to the chamber. I'll deal first with the one moved by Senator Henderson. Then I'll go to Senator Hodgins-May, and I'll then I will go to you, Senator Thorpe. Minister?

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President, I omitted to table—and I now table—an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024. The addendum responds to matters raised by the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Henderson be agreed to.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to:

(a) ensure that early childhood education and care is universal, free and high-quality across Australia; and

(b) commit to fully funding the outcomes of the Fair Work Commission's gender pay equity research project, including ensuring that educators continue to receive funded pay rises after the 2-year period of the grant program proposed in this bill".

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Hodgins-May be agreed to.

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

THORPE () (): I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes:

(i) more than 22,900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are in out-of-home care,

(ii) the child protection system, which was built to remove children from their families, continues to inflict harm on First Nations families,

(iii) the Productivity Commission's inquiry report, A path to universal early childhood education and care, has found that governments continue to fail on their commitments to shared decision making and supporting the community-controlled sector,

(iv) improving outcomes for First Nations communities starts with supporting children and allowing First Nations communities to self-determine their own solutions for caring for young people; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) commit to shared decision making and handing over control of services for First Nations young people and families to the community-controlled sector,

(ii) ensure accountability in funding for early years by prioritising community-controlled organisations delivering services and outcomes for families, and

(iii) provide additional supports for smaller early years organisations to develop their own enterprise agreements".

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Thorpe be agreed to.