Press conference - Canberra

PAVAN GREWAL: I would like to welcome all the ministers. Thank you so much for coming. And the union members and they’ve been supporting me a lot. And we would like to appreciate the employees that has helped the sector with shaping the educators. Thank you so much. I would like to hand over to Talitha.

TALITHA DEAN: I’m Talitha, I’m a safety champion at Goodstart Braddon. The pay rise for me and my family means that we’re able to start planning our family sooner than we would. Like, we’ve always wanted children and we want to have them as soon as possible and have them while they’re young, and the pay rise means that we can start doing that instead of having to wait, like, five or ten years or so. And then when we do have children, we’ll be able to make healthier choices, choose all of the fruit and veg, because that’s getting so expensive, as opposed to all the processed foods. Because health is one of our priorities.

LEANE TOWNROW: Hi, I’m Leane. I’m the director of Kirinari here in Canberra. I’ve been in the sector for 20 years and this is the first time that I’ve seen a change in the narrative for our sector. We’re finally being recognised for the professionals that we are. And this wage increase is helping educators to stay in the sector and increasing the intake of students to come back as well.

JESS WALSH, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND MINISTER FOR YOUTH: Good morning, everyone. And thanks very much to Pavan, Talitha and Leane for being here. This pay rise is all about respecting and valuing them and the 200,000 early educators around the country who are receiving the second part of our historic pay rise today. This is a 15 per cent pay rise. It means $11,000 extra in the pay packets of the average early childhood educator. When we came into office, educators were telling us it was difficult for them to stay in the jobs that they loved. They just weren’t earning enough and love wasn’t paying the rent. That’s why we committed to this historic 15 per cent pay rise, and we’re fully delivering it with the second part of that pay rise hitting today. It's about valuing our nation’s early childhood educators. It’s about respecting our nation’s early childhood educators. It’s coming at a really important time, just before Christmas – but it’s not a Christmas present. This is something that has been hard earned by our educators who work so hard caring for, developing, nurturing, educating our nation’s children and have worked so hard over the years to advocate for this pay rise through their union. I’m really proud to be part of a Government that has listened, that is delivering this pay rise, that is helping families like Talitha’s get ahead. And I’m really proud to be part of a Government that has committed to and is delivering a more stable workforce in early childhood education because the strong and stable workforce is not just good for educators, it’s good for the children in their care as well. We know that dedicated, trained, skilled, passionate, dedicated early childhood educators are the key to delivering quality early education. And that’s exactly what this pay rise will deliver. And I’ll now turn over to the Minister for Education, Jason Clare.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Jess. To the hundreds of thousands of early educators across the country, thank you for what you do. What you do isn’t babysitting; it’s early education. And we need more of you. And fundamentally that’s what this pay rise is about – it’s about respecting the work that you do, the professionals that you are, and encouraging more people across the country to do this important work. There aren’t many jobs in the country more important than the work that our early educators do. And it turns out when you pay people more, more people want to do the job. That’s what we’re seeing here. Over the last 12 months we’ve seen a jump in the number of people signing up to be early educators, and we’ve seen a drop in vacancy rates. And here at Goodstart, we’ve seen something which I think is unbelievable – the drop in the number of labour hire employees in Goodstart centres across the country of 70 per cent. And to the point that you made, Jess, about making sure that we’ve got a workforce which is more permanent. And a permanent workforce is a safer workforce as well. So this is a really important part of recognising the importance of our early educators, making sure that they’ve got money in their pocket to put food on their table for their kids and start their own families, but also recognising the importance of the work you do and making sure that our centres are better, safer places as well. It’s just one of the things we’re doing. Yesterday I also announced the steps we’re taking to roll out mandatory safety training across the system next year. And from the 1st of January next year the three-day guarantee will begin. We’re getting rid of the old activity test. That stopped a lot of children from very poor families from missing out on the benefits of early education altogether. That three-day guarantee that starts next year is about making sure that more kids start school ready to learn by getting the benefits of early education when they’re little in places like this. I’ll hand over to Amanda.

AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Today is a really exciting day where early educators are getting their second tranche of wage increases that properly recognises the essential work that they do. And I would like to echo my colleagues in really recognising and thanking those early educators right around the country. They aren’t babysitting; they are educating our youngest citizens. And I would like to acknowledge also the work that Goodstart does. Goodstart has a network of centres right around the country and it’s wonderful to see them really supporting their educators. Part of the way that this wage increase was delivered was through the workplace relations changes that we made. Our changes were to get wages moving and to reinvigorate enterprise bargaining. And through our supported bargaining stream we’ve had the legislative mechanism to facilitate this pay increase to recognise these workers. Our focus as a Government has been to get wages moving. And this is just one of the ways that we have demonstrated that through introducing more enterprise bargaining. Of course, Sussan Ley, just a few days ago, said when it came to workplace relations, she wanted to get stuck into it all. Well, she has to come clean. Is she going to repeal the multi-employer bargaining, the supported bargaining stream that has facilitated this important wage increase and made sure that early educators are getting the wages they deserve? This is something she has to come clean about and tell us what her plans are. But I’ll leave that for today. Today is a great day for our early educators. They’ve been recognised. As I said, our government has recognised the work that they’ve done by providing the mechanism to deliver this pay increase and has funded it.

JOURNALIST: Minister Clare, what’s been the take-up rate of the pay increase among the providers?

CLARE: The take-up rate is around about 75 per cent, Jess, am I –

WALSH: Eighty.

CLARE: Eighty, okay. So a little bit higher. And a key point to make here is that we set conditions on this pay rise. The 15 per cent goes to centres, it goes to the workers, and you only get the funding if you commit to capping the fee increases at no more than about four per cent. That’s an important condition that’s helped to make sure that fees didn’t go up any higher than they otherwise would have.

JOURNALIST: And do you know why those 25 per cent haven’t taken up that?

CLARE: You’d have to ask them.

JOURNALIST: Will you extend that cap on payment fee increases beyond [indistinct]?

CLARE: Well, that’s something that we’ll look at as we look at this pay rise over the longer term. Obviously, this pay rise applies till the end of next year, and that’s something that we’ll look at next year.

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] uptake of educators, how many more are needed in the system? 
         
CLARE: We need tens of thousands more people to become early educators because this is important work, because more and more parents are working and want their children to receive early education and care. It helps them to get back to work but also, as I said earlier, it helps their kids prepare for school. You know, this isn’t changing nappies; this is changing lives. All of the evidence that we get that we see shows us, tells us, that kids who are here get the life lessons that prepare them for school to be ready to sit up, listen and learn, but also learn the alphabet, learn basic numeracy. If you ask a primary school principal which children in kindergarten or prep have been to early education and care, they can spot them and pick them out for you. Those kids are ready when school starts. Unfortunately at the moment, there’s a whole bunch of kids who miss out on that opportunity. That’s what the three-day guarantee is about – making sure that their parents get the subsidy as well. But that’s what this pay rise is about as well – to make sure that we’ve got more early educators. When we got this job a couple of years ago we had people leaving the sector in droves because they could earn more money in Bunnings or Woolies or Coles. We’re now seeing that turn around. Is John here? Where’s John? Come over here, mate. This is one of the blokes who put me in a head lock three years ago and said the attrition rates are through the roof, we’re losing people hand over fist, we’ve got to do something about it. Do you want to tell us what things were like a couple of years ago and what it’s like for Goodstart now?

CHERRY: Well, John Cherry, Goodstart Early Learning, Head of Advocacy. Three years ago Goodstart had the highest vacancies it had in – ever. And we were actually closing rooms across Australia because we couldn’t get enough educators to actually look after the children that were there. And every educator’s spot that wasn’t filled meant 15 families who couldn’t actually go to work. So, what we’ve seen since the last two years is our vacancy rates are now down to 30 per cent. They’re at a five-year low, and that’s a direct result of this subsidy today. And that means that across Australia our centres – not just Goodstart centres but right across the sector – are able to offer a more stable workforce. And a more stable workforce means a safer environment for children and higher quality of early learning. So this is a great win not just for educators but actually for Australian families. And from that point of view, we’re very, very grateful. We were the first employer in Australia to sign up to this initiative, and we’re very delighted to be here today to be behind it as well.

JOURNALIST: Moving on from early childhood education, your electorate is one of the most diverse and multicultural in the country. Do you think there needs to be a values test for the migrants [indistinct]?

CLARE: Well, there already is. You know, Australia is the best country in the world, and one of the reasons we’re the best country in the world is because we’re made up of people from all over the world living here in harmony. And Australia rubs off on you. Just look at different groups of people who’ve come to Australia over the years. That’s integration in action. And if you’re somebody migrating to Australia, you get a visa to come to Australia, then you sign up to a values statement. And if you don’t – you know, if you don’t apply those values in your life here in Australia, guess what? Then you’re not welcome here. Have a look at the neo-Nazi that was parading out the front of New South Wales State Parliament. He’s now locked up in a detection centre, I think, in my electorate on his way back to South Africa, and we’ll be glad to see him go.

JOURNALIST: What do you make of comments from Jonno Duniam saying that we need a values test?

CLARE: I haven’t seen those comments.

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]?

CLARE: Sure.

JOURNALIST: And social media. With the social media ban coming up, what do you think it would do to education results over the country?

CLARE: Yeah, well, I think they’ll help improve them. That would be my bet. We’ve already got live experience having our schools now because we banned phones from schools a couple of years ago. And what teachers tell me is that it means that kids are now focused on them in the classroom rather than on their phones. In the playgrounds kids are having more fun. Playgrounds are noisier at lunch time than they used to because kids are playing with each other rather than looking down at their phones. But as we know, when the school bell rings, go past a bus stop at 3 o’clock and you’ll see kids on their phones again. There’s a real link between mental health and education achievement. Children who have challenges with their mental health are usually about a year and a half to two years behind their friends in the classroom when they’re in Year 9. And we know the mental health impact that social media is having on teenagers across the country. You know, this is like poker machines for kids. This – you know, any parent watching this now who has got a teenager who’s screamed out for them to come to the dinner table and they can’t hear them because they’re sitting on their bed doomscrolling on their phone looking at TikTok or whatever will know the sort of impact that it has on our children. That’s why we’re doing this – to help our kids, to help Australian parents. And I think one of the impacts of it will be that it’s going to help education achievement as well.

JOURNALIST: And with the ban coming up, I’m sure there’s going to be rogue [indistinct] people are going to try and make games that kids go on to that get around your ban.

CLARE: Yeah.

JOURNALIST: How do you ban those?

CLARE: Well, that’s why the system needs to be dynamic. This is why the Minister for Communications and the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has said is that you’ve got to have the ability not just to apply it to TikTok or to Instagram or to Snapchat, but if other platforms come up which are equally insidious and having that same sort of impact on our children, the ability to ban them too.