Doorstop - Sydney

KAREN MORAN, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR: We welcome this decision by the Albanese Labor government today that’s been 20 years in the making. Early childhood educators perform some of the most vital work in the country, but for so long they have been the most undervalued and underpaid. And this decision today will change people’s lives. It means that early childhood educators who've been relying on Foodbank to feed their own families won't have to do that anymore. And those that work two and three jobs just to make ends meet will be able to spend more time with their families. It's also about the recognition, which is so well deserved. So thank you so much for this today. It really means so much to so many. And thank you to United Workers Union for never giving up on us. Thank you, Prime Minister.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is a proud day to be Australia's Prime Minister. Proud of our 18 Gold Medals, our best Olympic performance ever. Doing something that uplifts our nation by giving us excitement, joy and pride. It's also a proud day to be making this announcement, because this is about uplifting our nation as well. As the t-shirt says, ‘Valuing every child, but valuing every educator’. This 15 per cent pay increase is justice. Justice for the work that early educators do, not just in minding our children, because that's not what they do. Yes, they mind them, but they care for them, and importantly, they educate them as well. Human brain development occurs more in the first five years than in the rest of people's lives, and that is why this is so important. That is why this is a reform whose time has come. I committed during the 2022 election to advancing the interests of these workers and importantly, this whole sector. And today's announcement, which will mean a 10 per cent increase in the wages of early educators and childcare workers from December. That means an increase in people's pay packets of over $100 a week, an additional 5 per cent from December next year, meaning a total increase in wages of more than $150. Now that is about making sure that this sector has a workforce into the future. Making sure that there's proper value over these two years while the work value case is taking place before the Fair Work Commission. In our Better Jobs, Secure Pay legislation that we passed as one of our first measures in industrial relations, what we did was we put gender pay equity as one of the objectives of the Fair Work Act. That's because it is no accident that feminised industries like child care and aged care, social work, other industries which are dominated by women were the most underpaid. That's because these workers here know that if they take industrial action, it has a devastating impact. Like our nurses and other sectors that have been dominated by women, the care sector needs to be valued and that's why it needs government and the Fair Work Commission to take that into account. This is good for these workers, importantly, it's good for our children as well. Since we came to office, we see an increased number of people working in the sector, increased number of centres being open. This will apply across the board for not for profit, for profit, for out of school hours care, as long as those sectors as well pass on the benefit to families which is why it's good. Making sure that we put a cap on fee increases if centres are to be eligible for this wage increase. Now that will make a difference for families, but it's also good for our economy because what this will do is increase workforce participation, make sure that more women can return to work earlier, make sure that so many women cannot be disadvantaged by working an extra day or two, that they can reenter the workforce, boosting productivity. So, good for workers, good for our youngest Australians, good for our economy and productivity. This is a very positive day and I'm very pleased and want to congratulate the workforce who are here, but right around Australia as well. This is something where, as I've gone into centres here in my electorate, but across every state and territory, what I've met is workers who are so committed to making a difference to the young Australians that they help. This isn't why they do it, it's not about their wages and still they're not going to be overpaid, let me say that. They do it out of their commitment to making a difference, out of the pleasure and pride they get in seeing the really vibrant young people, such as those that we've met here in Leichhardt this morning. They make a difference. They deserve our thanks, but they also deserve decent wages and that's what this will be doing. I also want to give a shout out to Jason and Anne, who will speak to you now. They've done a fantastic job. There's more work to be done in this area, but they've done a great job as advocates working through these issues to achieve today's result by working with the union, by working with the sector, centre providers as well, to make sure that we get this right, to make a big difference. And it will make a big difference, not just today, not just in the next year, but this is one of those reforms that changes the way that Australia functions into the future for the next generation.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: This is a great day. Our early educators deserve a gold medal, they also deserve a pay rise - and that's what this is about. Over the last year or so we've cut the cost of childcare for more than a million Australian families, and this is the next step, supporting the people that make all of this possible. The people who lift our kids up, by lifting their wages. Boss, you're absolutely right. This isn't babysitting, this is early education. Everything that our early educators do helps to shape and change and make the people that we become. Everything that you see, everything that you read, every meal, every smile, shapes and makes the people that we become. The US President makes the point that if a child goes to preschool, they're 50 per cent more likely to go to college or to university. So this isn't about changing nappies, this is about changing lives, and that's what our early educators do. And what we're announcing today is two things, a 15 per cent pay rise for our early educators, but also keeping prices down for parents. Because in order for centres to get the 15 per cent pay rise for their workers, we're capping fees at no more than 4.4 per cent for families, including the families on that plane. So this –

PRIME MINISTER: The inner west pause.

MINISTER CLARE: This is a cost of living win-win. It's good for workers and it's good for parents. And at its heart, this is good for education for the next generation. Setting our kids up for success, for building a better and a fairer education system. We want our kids to start school ready to learn and we want more kids to finish school and more kids to be able to go on to TAFE and university, get the jobs and the lives of their dreams. But it all starts here, with the magic that our early educators create. Thank you for everything that you do. It's a real privilege to be here as part of this announcement today.

DR ANNE ALY, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND YOUTH: I want to start by acknowledging the early childhood educators who are here and all their advocates who, for more than a decade, have been fighting for this. And I can hear that collective sigh right across Australia from all our early childhood educators. When I first became a Member of Parliament in 2016, I signed a pledge to support a pay rise for early childhood educators, as did many of my parliamentary colleagues. But it took an Albanese Labor government to deliver it. And today is a great day for early childhood education for the entire sector right across Australia. Now, as the Prime Minister and Jason have said, we know that brain development is, 90 per cent of brain development occurs in those first five years. This is not babysitting. This is not wiping bums and noses. This is education. We see you, we hear you, we acknowledge you, we know the vital and professional work that you do in helping our youngest Australians to grow and to thrive. We know also that if we want to get to that vision that the Prime Minister has talked about, a universal early childhood education system in Australia that is world class, that is affordable, that is accessible and that is inclusive, we need the workforce. We have already increased the pipeline of early childhood educators coming through our Fee-Free TAFE - one of the most popular courses is early childhood education and care. Now, we have increased the wages. Helping early childhood educators who have been struggling for so long, as much as they love the job, we know love don't pay the bills, right? Our next steps of reform will be forthcoming. We are committed to an early childhood education system that works for everyone. That works for the educators, that works for parents, and that importantly, works for children as well. And every Australian, whether you're a parent, a grandparent, an aunty or an uncle, whether you know someone who works in early childhood education or whether you are an early childhood educator, can get behind this. Can get behind this because every Australian knows just how important the work of raising and educating our youngest Australians is. Congratulations on today.

PRIME MINISTER: Thanks Anne. Happy to take some questions.

JOURNALIST: PM, how do you police it to make sure that the childcare centres are actually not lifting their fees and passing the funding on?

PRIME MINISTER: Because as part of the condition of this will be a cap on fee increases. Making sure that this delivers benefits for families on top of the increase in the Childcare Subsidy that we did last year. We know that that's had an 11 per cent decrease in the costs of child care for over 1 million families. So, that's why this is good for children, good for workers and good for families, as well as being good for our economy.

JOURNALIST: What do you do after that cap expires?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we're doing is, this is for two years. What we're doing is considering, and I might ask Jason to add to this, we have had a Productivity Commission review, but we're looking at the move towards universal provision of affordable childcare, which is what I said before the election. You do that in stages. A precondition for a successful sector is paying workers a decent wage. Because unless you did that, all of the reports have said that so many people who love working in this sector, and I'm not looking across there because there are – to see tears of joy and of relief from the workers here says how much this means to people who work in the sector. A precondition for keeping people in the sector, but also attracting more, is proper wages. Now, I note that the Shadow Treasurer has done an interview this morning where he couldn't bring himself to say, “yeah, that's a good thing.” I remember during the election campaign, where the then Prime Minister Morrison, couldn't bring himself to say anything, of when I said that a $1 increase in the minimum wage, I would absolutely support it if the Fair Work Commission decided it. And I said I'd absolutely support it if the Fair Work Commission were to do that. And that was seen as a mistake, loose, by the then Coalition. They've learned nothing. They don't value the work that working people do. They speak about cost of living, but won't provide any support for any cost of living measures. Be it increases in wages, energy price relief plan, Cheaper Child Care, Fee-Free TAFE. They oppose all of it. And what we need to do is to make sure we have that short term support, which we're doing, whilst putting that downward pressure on inflation. And we've designed this the same way. An increase in wages while we're keeping a cap on costs for families making a difference. But I might ask Jason to –

MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, boss. So, the first thing is to make sure that this 15 per cent gets into the pockets of early educators. And that's why all providers will need a registered Industrial Agreement with the Fair Work Commission. The Commission will work with providers who need to set that up between now and December. The second thing is to make sure that providers don't increase their costs by more than that cap of 4.4 per cent. That's why there'll be a legally enforceable agreement between my Department, the Department of Education, and providers. Four point four per cent has been set, informed by the work the ACCC has been doing with us, mixture of CPI and WPI. We'll work with the ABS over the future years in terms of what we set that level at. I guess the other point, I'd encourage you to have a look at the interim report from the Productivity Commission that we released a couple of months ago, and it says that to build a universal early education system where all kids get access to affordable early education, step number one is to pay our early educators more to build that workforce. We've got 30,000 more early educators working in the sector now than when we came to office. But we need more. And I'm hoping that this will encourage more people to stay, more people to come back and more people to think about becoming an early educator. I dropped off my little guy this morning and I said, have you heard the news? They said they hadn't. Had to tell them. And Kerry, who looks after my little guy, said ‘gee, maybe I won't retire now.’ And I'm hoping that that is what a lot of people think. People that are thinking ‘I love this job, but I can't afford to do it’ will think ‘well, now I can.’ And people who've left the job to go and work at the supermarket think ‘I can go back to doing the job I love.’ And encourage more people to want to be an early educator, because that's the first big step to building the universal system that we want to create.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just another question if I may, and I’d ask the same question of the Prime Minster, too. There’s been reports the Government will cut international students to 40 per cent of enrolments, is that an appropriate level for the cut or does that risk reducing to a major shortage at a time while the economy is softening?

MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Yeah, that's not right. I've seen those reports. That's not what we're intending to do. I'd make the general point that international education is an incredibly important national asset for us. We're talking here today about early education, how important that is. International education is our fourth biggest export industry. Makes us money, not just universities, but us as a country, and also makes us friends, because when students come to Australia to study and they fall in love with the place, maybe fall in love with someone special, they take that love for us back home with them. What we're doing here is making sure we protect the integrity of the system, and that's important, but also protecting the social license for the system to continue to operate. I'll have more to say about the levels that we'll set using the legislation that's in the Parliament in the next few weeks.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, we've seen a similar wage scheme with aged care. Is there a risk that sectors like aged care and childcare become more and more reliant on tax payers, and is that sustainable?

PRIME MINISTER: No. What is not sustainable is an economy that doesn't value the care sector. What is not sustainable is wages that are determined on the basis of gender. And the truth is, if you have a look at the most underpaid sectors, they are the feminised sectors. And one of the reasons is, is because these people here, as much as I say this in front of the National Secretary of the UWU, is they don't want to take industrial action. Nor do nurses, nor do people in aged care, because they don't want to abandon the aged care sector. They don't want to leave families out of care and the implications for the sector. What I'd say is, can we afford as a society to not value these sectors? Just about 50 metres up the road here is Leichhardt Public School, and about 150 metres that way is Sydney Secondary College, where my son did his years seven to 10. No one questions whether there is a social responsibility to provide support there. What is happening right here this morning and these incredibly bright young people, including young Ned, who was showing me around the centre here. The confidence and social skills that young Ned have aren't things that people are born with. That's a part of learning. I've been in these centres where they learn the basics of – they start learning maths, start learning to write, start learning as well how to interact as young humans. And it can't be, it can't be underestimated how important it is. Because we know that – all of the research tells us that, just as the stat that Jason raised about the statements in the US about preschool and early learning leading to a greater opportunity for people to advance in a college education, we know how important this is. We want to make sure, as well, that the contribution back to the economy is valued. And when you allow for a system with greater workforce participation of women, boost to productivity, boost to business, that repays the investment many times over.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on a totally different note if I may. You may have seen there was a pretty cheeky comment by the New Zealand Prime Minister who said in his dealings with Australians, it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear and used in English. Has he got that right?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, Christopher Luxon a friend of mine, but I often think that whilst we both speak English, sometimes we need interpreters with the Kiwi accent. From time to time, things can be missed between us. And that was the case with PM Hipkins and Ardern before him. Look, we're great friends and we're great mates. Sometimes, though, we do speak a different language and that's when we both think we're speaking English.

jOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on another thing for you. Given social media companies are refusing to pay for news, will the Government be looking to designate them under the News Media Bargaining Code? Or is the simplest solution a levy on social media companies to pay for traditional news?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're looking at those issues and we think that social media companies have a social obligation, as well. And that they shouldn't be able to essentially harvest the work of news organisations that pay their journalists to do work that should be valued. And that's important. Now, we continue to argue that they should do the right thing and the Government is examining and working with the sector to make sure that that happens. But journalism is important in this country. It's important we value it and it's important that people not essentially ride free on what costs others to employ news media.

JOURNALIST: If they won’t keep the traditional news media, when will (inaudible)

PRIME MINISTER: We'll make a decision at an appropriate time, but we're working through those issues. We've made it very clear to Meta and to others as well what our very strong view is. Thanks very much.

JOURNALIST: I’ve just got two questions for my colleague at (inaudible)

PRIME MINISTER: That's always interesting.

JOURNALIST: Have you spoken to PNG about reports they might sell their power grid to China? And how concerned are you about these reports?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes. And, no. I've seen reports, I see a whole lot of reports from time to time that have no basis in fact. And what the PNG Government are saying is that they want to make sure that it stays, their energy network stays in public hands. And that we're continuing to work with the PNG Government. I make this point. No Australian Government has ever been closer since PNG independence, will be celebrated next year the 50 year anniversary, as my Government is. I walked the Kokoda Track earlier this year with the Prime Minister of PNG, James Marape, who I regard as a very close friend. That's the first time an Australian Prime Minister has walked Kokoda to pay tribute to our veterans and to the support that they were given by the people of Papua New Guinea, at great sacrifice to them. Importantly as well is that was the first time that a PNG Prime Minister has walked Kokoda as well. The service that we held together at Isurava, along with so many visitors, was a really solemn moment. It's one of the moments I will cherish for the rest of my life. And I know that James Marape will be visiting Australia again. He was the first PNG Prime Minister to address our Parliament. I was the first foreign leader from any country to address the Parliament of Papua New Guinea. That says a lot about how close our relationship is. PNG has an economic relationship with China. Guess what? So, does Australia. And so I think that we'll continue to work together closely.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

PRIME MINISTER: I didn't hear any of that. Look, Makarrata is simply a Yolngu word for coming together after struggle. Now, post the Referendum, we're continuing to work through with Indigenous Australians a whole range of issues. But I outlined on Saturday, on Saturday in my speech to Garma, one where I note the Coalition are very critical but will never turn up to talk to First Nations people. Not a single member of the Coalition, or of any other political party for that matter, attended Garma. Jason was there to talk about education. Malarndirri McCarthy was there. Amanda Rishworth was there to talk about social services and those issues. Linda Burney was there as a former Minister. Luke Gosling was there. Marion Scrymgour was there. We were there to consult and listen. We'll continue to do that for First Nations people. But my speech, I think, represented a significant initiative to look at economic development and empowerment for Indigenous Australians. That's really important. That we give Indigenous Australians the best opportunity in life and that they have the same opportunity as other Australians. So, we're working through those issues. We’ll continue to consult and to engage constructively. And so my Government is very much committed to that. We need to close the gap. And those practical initiatives that we've announced, whether it be the remote housing program of $4 billion, the education deal that's been signed between the Minister here and the Northern Territory Government to bring every Northern Territory student and school up to the standard, the increased support for health, including the roll-out of dialysis in remote communities. All of these initiatives in infrastructure, in social policy, health policy, economic policy, all aim towards closing the gap, because we need to do better. Thanks very much.