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

Politics is about choices, and I'm pretty happy about one of the choices that has been made in this place today. This chamber today will pass the government's legislation to remove the punitive activity test for three days per week, as part of the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025. This bill's passage is happening because of the Greens, and because of early childhood advocates keeping the pressure on. The Greens and advocates know that this punitive policy locks out hundreds of thousands of kids from achieving a crucial early education. It keeps more than 40,000 parents out of work, primarily women, and it locks First Nations kids out of child care, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Today, the Greens look set to secure a major win for families and kids right across this country. It's a sign that Greens pressure works, because Labor has been forced to back its own bill to remove the childcare-subsidy activity test for three days per week. I'm confident that this sort of collaboration and cooperation is exactly what people right across this country want to see more of.

At the start of last week, the government said that they wanted to get this done. The Greens came out and said, 'Come on, then; let's do it.' Despite this being just one step towards fixing a broken childcare system, we recognised that this was a crucial first step. And, despite some false starts, today they've been forced to put kids and families ahead of politics.

I just want to reflect on the opportunity that exists to do this in so many other areas. We could be up here celebrating gambling reform, getting gambling ads off televisions. We're seeing today that women are just as impacted as men in terms of gambling losses. We could be celebrating putting nature first and passing incredibly important reforms to our environmental protection authority. Labor, we're ready to work with you and get things done because that is what the people of Australia want.