Early Childhood Education

Nothing is more important than the safety of our children, and early childhood education plays an incredibly important role. It provides our littlest Australians with a good start in life, a chance to learn and a chance to make friends. Early childhood education is also crucial for parents who are studying, training and working. Our early educators are so very important in shaping these young lives. They deserve all of our respect and gratitude for the work that they do because it’s not an easy job; that’s for sure. I know from the hundreds of educators and service providers that I’ve met over the last three years that they do it out of love and out of care. But there’s no doubt that both families and the sector have faced many challenges over the last three years. Affordability, access, quality, choice, flexibility—all these things are key to thriving in early childhood education and care and for the sector to grow.

Unfortunately, this government’s policies have failed to address these issues in a meaningful way. Regional, rural and remote communities in particular are struggling the most. In fact, according to the Mitchell Institute, around sic million Australians—close to a quarter of the population—live in a childcare desert. That means they live in an area where three or more children compete for each childcare place. This has a devastating impact on these communities, as young families struggle to work and raise their children because of the lack of support available. It’s meant that these communities struggle to attract new families and critical workers. We know the sector has faced workforce challenges, and we know that many families, no matter where they live in Australia, are languishing on very long waiting lists.

Despite all these challenges, the overwhelming majority of educators and service providers do an amazing job. They provide a safe environment for children, educate them and nourish them. However, as the minister said, a small number of providers and educators are doing the wrong thing. They are those who are letting their staff down, those who are failing the parents who have entrusted them with their precious children and those who have betrayed the innocence of children. I echo the minister’s sentiment that there is absolutely no room for this. And I stress again: there is nothing that is more important than the personal safety of our children.

The coalition have always shown our commitment to keeping all children safe, whether at home, at school, in child care or online. Of course, it was the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, who created the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, which played a critical role in tracking down one of the worst child sex offenders—a predator who had been hiding in plain sight as a childcare worker. The coalition, as Peter Dutton outlined in his 2023 budget-in-reply, has committed to doubling the size of that centre to further strengthen that very effective child safety mechanism. We must do everything we can to make sure that something like this never ever happens again.

That’s why the coalition supports in principle the minister’s move to crack down on bad providers and educators. As the shadow minister for early childhood education, I welcome her move to working closely with the sector as well as state and territory counterparts to make this a reality. There is no doubt we need the entire sector to be able to work better together and weed out the unscrupulous actors. But the devil is always in the detail. While the coalition welcomes the minister’s sentiments, we urge her to make sure this is not just empty words or platitudes. Sadly, families and educators have come to expect not much more from this government, and one must ask why it has taken three years, on the eve of an election and in the wake of a damning news report, for the government to finally take this action. There have been countless reviews into the sector by the ACCC and the Productivity Commission. There was a review into in-home care and inclusion support, and there was the Child safety review by ACECQA. We are yet to see formal responses to any of these.

The truth is that this government has made things much harder for the sector. Think about the worker retention payment and the difficulty services and educators have faced. Just last night, on A Current Affair, an early learning provider revealed they are nearly $200,000 out of pocket because of the complexities of this government’s grant scheme. A trusted early childhood education service is now seriously concerned about the impact this will have on their viability and, most importantly, the quality of education they can provide to their families. This isn’t the only service who find themselves in this situation. Countless small and medium providers—family owned services which have been operating in communities for years and even decades—are facing similar problems. These hardworking services, providers and educators have been completely let down by this government. I welcome the news that the education minister has agreed in principle to all recommendations under ACECQA’s child safety review, and it’s pleasing to hear that all actions are on track. I encourage the minister to provide more detail on this.

The minister made note of the national model code and guidelines which were released last year to embed child-safety practices around the use of electronic devices, and, while this is an important step, we know that it is, in fact, voluntary. In fact, governments do not maintain records of providers who have chosen to adopt it. The safety of our children is far too important for such superficial measures. The headlines might be good, but child safety should be about more than that. What’s the point of any sort of code if no-one is even keeping record of who has voluntarily agreed to it? Again, I urge the minister and this government to make sure they get the detail right when it comes to all of the regulatory changes they are planning, including those the minister says are set to take effect from September.

The government must work hand in hand with the sector to make sure the rollout of such changes is seamless and effective. While it’s crucial to stamp out bad behaviour in the sector, we need to make sure any regulatory changes do not punish the educators who do the right thing—those who go above and beyond to provide safe and quality education for our children. We need to make sure this doesn’t just become another layer of bureaucracy that makes life harder for families and our hardworking educators.

The government must be sure this doesn’t become another broken promise, like the worker retention payment or cheaper child care—because we know that, over the last three years, the cost of child care has risen by over 22 per cent. Since the rollout of the government’s changes to the childcare subsidy, out-of-pocket fees have risen by nearly 13 per cent. So I rebut what the Prime Minister says and what the minister says about cheaper child care. Early childhood educators are too important to be treated this way. As the shadow minister for early childhood education and care, I look forward to engaging with the minister on these safety matters to make sure that we get this right. There’s much work to do to safeguard children’s safety, and more must be done for Australian families and children.

Finally, just as the minister said, I would like to take a moment to say thank you to the incredible early educators across Australia. To those who take such pride in the important work they do supporting children and supporting families, and to those who care for, educate and protect our children: thank you.