Summing up – Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026

I thank all members for their contributions to this debate. 

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 is the latest in a long line of important bills that we've brought before the House on early childhood education and care.

What do we hear in every single one of these debates? 

We hear personal stories, including a very moving contribution by my friend the Member for Herbert, who sits across the chamber from me now. 

We hear personal stories about how important early childhood educators are to our constituents, to our families in our electorates, to their children and to members themselves. 

I can certainly attest to that, to the beautiful relationship that our early educators have with our children and to what it's meant for our family.

Early educators do one of the most important jobs in the country—caring for our children, educating them and keeping them safe.

As I said almost two years ago, they deserve a pay rise, and they got one—a 15 per cent pay rise on the award rate. 

That is not just a number. 

It has delivered, and continues to deliver, real change in how our early childhood education and care sector operates. 

It's turned around attrition rates. 

It's let more educators stay in the job that they love and attracted more to do this important work, to the tune of 20,000 more childcare workers across the country. 

It's supported more than 215,000 early educators at more than 11,600 services. 

With this bill, that pay rise is locked in.

 When combined with the government's support for minimum wage rises, this means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers compared to December 2024, when we first implemented this pay rise. 

This bill puts to work our $3.6 billion investment over the next two years to lock in the pay rise and keep that support in place.

But this bill does more than that. 

It's not just workers who will benefit; it's mums and dads too, because, to receive the funding, services have to limit their fee increases. 

We've seen the effect of this measure already. In the first year of the program, fees at participating centres have increased by half the rate at centres that didn't sign up. 

That's helping with the cost of living for families while ensuring better pay for our childcare workers, our childcare educators and our childcare teachers.

There's one more thing that this bill does, and it's very important. 

It ties funding under the act to service quality and the safety of our children.

If a service doesn't meet quality area 2, relating to children's health and safety, under the national quality standard or its equivalent, they won't be funded, or their existing funding can be cut. 

About 95 per cent of services already meet this standard, but I want that number to be higher. 

That's what parents have a right to expect and what our children have a right to as well. 

Frankly, it's what our children all deserve. 

I've said that we're serious about the safety of our children, and our actions as a government, together with the actions that states and territories have taken over the last 12 months, are proof of that.

As I thank members for their contribution, I also want to thank those in the sector who have spoken in support of this bill and what it does. 

People like Ros Baxter, the CEO of Goodstart, the largest childcare provider in Australia, who said, “this funding means that educators are seen, that they are heard and that they are valued for the work that they do.”

Or the Australian Childcare Alliance CEO, Paul Mondo, who said, “providing funding to support wages is essential to maintaining stability in the sector and ensuring services can continue to deliver high-quality early learning whilst maintaining affordability for families.”

There is a lot of good in this bill. 

It's good for workers, it's good for parents and, most importantly of all, it's good for our children. 

I'm very proud to commend it to the House.