CASSANDRA FERNANDO, MEMBER FOR HOLT: It's great to be here at Goodstart Early Learning Centre in Hampton Park in the heart of my electorate. I'm honoured to be here today with the Prime Minister of Australia and Minister Clare and Minister Walsh. Holt is one of the youngest electorates in the country. It is where people come here to start their families, buy their first homes. It is a welcoming community. And by saying that, now I would like to welcome the Prime Minister to talk more about the announcement today.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much, Cass, and I'm very proud to be here today for what is a really important announcement. An announcement that is good for families, that's good for workers and good for children. Making sure that we fund the pay increase which will ensure that these early education centres can operate properly and that workers in this area, who aren't just child minders – we see this morning here an example of the early education that is offered by the skilled workforce which is here, largely made up of women who've been underpaid for too long. When we came to government, our child care sector was in crisis. People weren't being paid enough, and people were leaving the sector. What we've done in areas such as this is make sure that workers can be properly paid, but done it in a way as well so that caps are put on fee increases in the child care sector, meaning that this is good for families as well.
So, this decision today will make an enormous difference. On top of that, of course, every single worker here, like all 14 million workers around Australia will get a tax cut in just a couple of weeks' time. This is about cost-of-living and dealing with practical issues in a real way that makes a real difference for families in this electorate and indeed families right around Australia. And I want to pay tribute to the incredible staff who work at centres like this, because what I see is people who are very passionate about what they do. They're passionate about making a difference for our youngest Australians, making sure that they get the best start in life so that they can fulfil all of their potential. We know that in the first five years of life, over 90 per cent of brain development has already occurred. And that is why this is an investment in Australia's future as well as investing in the workers here, but investing in the youngest Australians as well.
We're going to hear from one of the staff members here, Elizabeth, and then we'll hear from the ministers and then hear from the representatives of Goodstart and also of the United Workers Union, who look after the early education sector.
ELIZABETH LA’FORGUE, EDUCATOR: Hi, I'm Elizabeth La’Forgue. I've been working for this child care industry for the last 21 years. I'm very happy about the 15 per cent pay rise, and to stay back, and this is good for our family as well as for the educators. And this makes a lot of difference so they can stay in this industry for longer, because good pay makes a lot of difference. And we can save our money, and we have a lot of money to spend for our families. As well as for, Christmas is coming soon. So, people will have money in their pockets. And consistency of the educator is more important for the children – if they see the same face every day, they're very happy. And if they see different faces every day, different faces coming and looking after the children, they're very distressed. So, I'm happy about this pay rise staying for longer. Thank you very much.
JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: G’day everyone. First, can I thank you, Prime Minister. This is a big deal and all the big things that are happening in education are happening because of you. Not just fixing the funding of our schools or cutting student debt, but also making sure that we pay our early educators properly and that we keep costs as low as they possibly can be for parents and make our centres as safe as they need to be for our kids. And what we're announcing today really is the trifecta. It's about making sure that we pay our staff properly, that we keep fee increases as low as possible for mums and dads across the country, and that we make sure that we keep our kids safe. The work that the staff here do and the work that hundreds of thousands of early educators do in centres just like this across the country is one of the most important jobs not just here, in all the world. It's not babysitting, it's early education.
What happens here changes lives. And you wouldn't know that from what people used to be paid. That's why the changes that we made 18 months ago are so important, and that's why cementing it in with what we're doing here is so important. And to give you an idea about the impact that it's had, the boss said a moment ago that this was a sector in crisis when we came to office. There are now 20,000 more people working in child care centres today than when we put this in place 18 months ago. The vacancy rate for staff in centres across the country has dropped by 31 per cent in 18 months. Now that tells you something, doesn't it? It tells you that if you pay people more, more people want to do the job, and people who left the job that they loved because they couldn't afford to keep doing it and went and got a job at Woolies or Bunnings are coming back. That means that our kids have got more full-time permanent staff to look after them, to educate them and to keep them safe. I think, Ros, the number of agency staff that you employ dropped by like 69 per cent.
ROS BAXTER, GOODSTART CEO: First year, 70 per cent.
MINISTER CLARE: Our kids are safer if the staff are here full-time, not in and out, moving from centre to centre to centre. And what we also know is that the centres that took up the 15 per cent pay rise when we put it in place a year and a half ago, their fee increases were half that of the centres that didn't take it up. So, it means people are paid more, but it also means that parents pay less than they otherwise would have had to. And that's why we're making that a condition today as well, because we want people to be paid more and we want mums and dads to not see that in big fee increases. If we hadn't made this decision that we're making today, then out-of-pocket costs for mums and dads would have skyrocketed by about 18 per cent.
But just one more thing, a new condition that we're adding today. And that is to say, if you want this funding for your staff, then you've got to make sure you meet the National Safety Standard. 95 per cent of centres meet that standard today. I want it to be 100 per cent. Parents watching today expect it to be 100 per cent. Our kids deserve for it to be 100 per cent. All of us were shocked and sickened by the revelations of the last 12 months. And I've been pretty blunt that not enough has been done to keep our kids safe by any government, Labor, Liberal, state, federal. That's now changing with the banning of phones, with the national register, with the CCTV trial, with workforce training and now 99 per cent of staff have done that in the first couple of months. But now we take the next step and we say that if we're giving you this funding, you've got to meet the National Safety Standard as well. And I reckon most mums and dads would say that's just about right.
JESS WALSH, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: Well, it's great to be here today with a Prime Minister who really understands quality early childhood education and care and who is committed to delivering quality early childhood education and care in this country. This is a Prime Minister who is backing workers today, and he's backing families today as well with what is a $3.6 billion investment in our early childhood education and care workforce. This announcement funds a $255 a week pay rise for our early childhood educators. And what I've heard from educators around the country is that that pay rise is life changing for them. They love their jobs, but what they've told me over and over again is that love doesn't pay the rent and that's why we've invested in this historic 15 per cent pay rise. It's good for educators. It helps them pay their bills. It helps them get ahead. It helps them stay in the jobs that they love. And that is also good for children too, because we know that the foundation of quality early childhood education and care in this country is our dedicated, passionate, committed, early educators. We need them to be able to afford to stay in the jobs that they love and that is exactly what this pay rise is delivering. It's good for educators. It's good for children. It's good for families. This is a historic investment and I'm proud to be with a Prime Minister today who is backing workers and backing families too.
ROS BAXTER: Well, good morning everyone and welcome to beautiful Goodstart Hampton Park. I'm Ros Baxter. I'm the CEO of Goodstart Early Learning. We're Australia's largest provider of early learning and we're also one of a minority of providers that dedicate every dollar we earn to children's outcomes and not-for-profit. And so, I'm proud to welcome you all and the Prime Minister here today for this important announcement. I often say that money matters, and it matters because cost-of-living is really tricky right now. It matters to keep food on the table, but it also matters for our amazing educators because it means that they are seen, that they are heard, and that they are valued for the work they do. And for those educators to have a Prime Minister stand up in what we all know is a tricky financial climate and to say, “We are backing you, we're investing in you and we think you matter,” is something that matters very much to our people.
I was in a really interesting position on the day that the first money for this wages subsidy hit our educators' accounts. I was in one of our Goodstart centres here in Melbourne in Clarinda and I was in the break room. We were having a little morning tea in between having some visits. And the women in the break room started checking their phones because they had heard that the money was hitting their accounts that day, but I think they didn't quite believe it until they saw it. And I've got to say, it was not just the educators who were having a cry in the break room that day. I think we all ended up in tears at this momentous moment for early learning.
Early learning matters. The first five years are a crucial window of opportunity in young lives. They are the foundation of young lives, but they are also the foundation of our economy and the productivity of our economy. And I'm super proud to be standing here today alongside a government and a Prime Minister that has backed that moment. So, thank you all for coming.
JO SCHOFIELD, UNITED WORKERS UNION NATIONAL PRESIDENT: Hi, I'm Jo Schofield. I'm the National President of United Workers Union. Our union welcomes this announcement by the Prime Minister and notes the ongoing commitments of the Albanese Labor Government to early childhood education and care. This commitment has made such a big difference for families and communities and children that rely on quality care every single day. We know that locking in this pay rise will be life changing for our members, members that have fought hard over decades. They've campaigned, they've lobbied, they've taken action, they've changed community perceptions about the work that they do. So, this victory of having this pay rise locked in also belongs to them and is an acknowledgement of the hard work that they have done and continue to do in contributing to early learning every single day. We know it makes a real difference. We absolutely commend the ongoing focus on the skills, the professionalism and the dedication of early childhood educators. We know that the sector is on a strong path and we welcome being on that path and doing further work with Labor to secure this victory. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. We're happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: We've seen some horrific allegations of child sexual abuse in our early learning centres. How confident are you that the measures that your government has put in place ensure that no child will ever have to go through those type of incidents again?
PRIME MINISTER: We're putting in place those safety measures and what we're doing with this announcement today is making sure that in order to be eligible for this funding, centres have to comply with the rules that have been put in place. We know it's caused a great deal of concern up to this point, and that is perfectly understandable. Parents want to know that when their young boy or girl turns up at an early learning centre, they're going to get the care that they need, it's going to be safe for them. That is fundamental. And that's why we're making sure that that occurs. As Jason has said, some 95 per cent of centres are already compliant. We want that to be 100 per cent.
MINISTER CLARE: There is nothing more important than the safety of our kids. And as I said in my early comments, not enough has been done in the past. That's changing. The truth is this work will never end and our greatest assets in places like this to keep our kids safe are the extraordinary workforce that we've got. 99.9 per cent of the people who work in our centres were just as sickened, just as broken as the rest of us by those revelations. And the proof of that if we need it is the fact that 99 per cent have done the first stage of the safety training in the first three months. We gave the sector – we said it's mandatory, everyone's got to do it in six months. Within three months, 99 per cent have done it. That's stage one. It's not the end. The next tranche of training begins in August. So, there is not just one thing we need to do, but training our staff to be able to recognise a predator who's hiding in plain sight is part of that and that training is happening right now. A register so we can track people who move from centre to centre and from state to state is up and running. Getting rid of these sorts of things in centres is important for reasons I don't think I need to explain to you. A trial of CCTV is happening now and that's really important as well, but this is the next step. But let me be really honest, really clear with you, this work will never end. We've got to continue to focus on this and make sure that we do everything in our power to keep our kids safe.
JOURNALIST: Why wait until I think next year to impose that financial impact, Jason or the Prime Minister, when it comes to those who don't meet the standards?
MINISTER CLARE: Well, we're giving them a runway here. We're saying, you have 12 months. If you don't meet that standard by the 1st of July next year, then this funding gets cut off. And if the funding gets cut off, they still need to pay their staff more then, because on 1st of July next year, the award catches up with this payment. So, they'll still have to pay their staff more, but they'll have to raise their fees. And guess what happens then? Parents move their children to another centre. So, they either act or they lose the funding and they lose their kids.
JOURNALIST: What about measures like a unified national Working with Children check? Is that off the table?
MINISTER CLARE: No, no, no. Well, that work is happening as well. That's being led by the Attorney-General. It's not a national Working with Children check. Each one is run by each state and territory, but what needs to happen, the work that's being led by the Attorney-General, is to make sure that there's a consistency across every state and territory and it's all linked up so that if somebody is banned in Victoria, they're also banned in New South Wales, they're banned in every state and territory in the country.
JOURNALIST: If it's found a child care centre isn't meeting those guidelines, is the funding pulled immediately? Is there a probation period? How does that work?
MINISTER CLARE: My department will work through the right sort of steps, but we're not mucking around here. I think I've made it really clear how important the safety of our children is. That's why we passed legislation through the Parliament that said that if you're a centre that is not meeting standards, we have the power to cut that funding off. That legislation's being used now and it's having an impact. We've put notices on over a hundred centres. About half of them have hit the deadline and suddenly after seven years of not meeting standards, guess what? They're now meeting standards. Seven of them haven't. They're now shut. And others are still on notice. So, we're not mucking around. I want our kids to be as safe as they possibly can. It's the workers here who help to do that. That's why I made the point that one of the benefits of paying people more is you have more full-time staff. You don't have people moving in and out, being at a different centre every day.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, could I ask, this is sort of entrenching, extending an existing pay rise, I mean, you weren’t exactly going to cut this sector’s pay by 15 per cent, is it really a big announcement?
PRIME MINISTER: It sure is a big announcement, because this is a program of increased funding that never happened previously. Prior to our government, what was happening was that there were massive vacancies in early learning. People were leaving the sector because they couldn't afford to stay in the sector, even though they love the work. These workers here, and every centre I've been into, right around Australia, what I do is I meet workers who are so proud. One of the workers in there, and it's a typical story – "how long have you worked here?" "15 years." And they love their children. They speak about feeling so sad when graduation day comes, because they've spent years helping to educate and getting to know the individual characters that, you know, we just saw in there, you know, young Leon, full of life, really enjoying the experience, engaging and learning those social skills that are so important, as well as learning basic education, numeracy, literacy, learning how to put things together, all of that learning. It must be said, the artwork of the young children was better than mine in there. I clearly failed at a young age, but it's fantastic. It makes a difference. And it wasn't happening. That is important. It's taken us, and this is a substantial investment that we're making here today, combined with minimum wage increases, a typical full-time educator will earn around $255 more a week than before these changes. That's a real difference that makes an enormous difference to people's quality of life in the sector.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is speaking at the National Press Club today. Do you think One Nation is ready to govern?
PRIME MINISTER: One thing that we know is that the questions that I hope are asked at the Press Club is why is it that One Nation is opposed to all of the cost of living measures that my government has put in place, whether it be these cost of living measures on child care, whether it be Free TAFE, the cut to student debt, the support for increased support for every school in Australia, that we have here in Victoria, and right around the country, the minimum wage increases that are opposed by the three right wing parties. I saw an interview from the One Nation Leader where she was talking about making it easier to sack people and concerned about the minimum wage increases. Well, what we've done in difficult economic circumstances is to make sure that we continue to prioritise cost of living measures. That's what good government looks like. It looks like having good ministers working with the private sector, working with organisations like not for profits, like Goodstart here, making a difference, working through these policy frameworks to make a difference to people's lives and to make a difference for the country. That is what we are doing.
JOURNALIST: Will you be tuning in to her address?
PRIME MINISTER: I've got a busy day, so I'll leave that to the media –
JOURNALIST: Watch the replay afterwards, perhaps?
PRIME MINISTER: I'll be watching the State of Origin tonight, and I'm sure that will be much more fulfilling.
JOURNALIST: We are expecting, I guess, a bit more meat on the bones in terms of policy and what One Nation might stand for. Do you fear that that might be broadly appealing?
PRIME MINISTER: We see what they stand for over 30 years. We've seen it over and over again. They stand for talking about battlers, but never representing battlers. They stand for dividing Australia, not uniting Australia. They stand for cutting workers' wages and entitlements, not improving living standards. They stand for getting donations from the big end of town, but talking about the needs of regional Australia. You know, we've seen who they represent and what they're prepared to engage in. With One Nation Leader’s visit to Washington, DC, a few years ago, you know, people need to go back, have a look at what they were prepared to do in order to procure donations when it came to meeting with advocates of dismantling John Howard's gun laws. These are all measures, they have a record that's there over 30 years, they haven't changed.
JOURNALIST: We have an election coming up here in just under five months for Victoria. Do you think Jacinta Allan is the right person to lead Labor this election? She's currently polling as the most unpopular Premier in the country.
PRIME MINISTER: She is absolutely the right person. And as Premier of Victoria, she has a record, not just as Premier, but as Infrastructure Minister, of building the infrastructure that Victorians need. She's been a part of delivering the $25 billion of additional health and hospital funding that we see throughout the country, of delivering the Urgent Care Clinics, of delivering the schools funding agreement of better and fair funding, full and fair funding for every public school here in Victoria. Projects like the Melbourne Metro are now open and running. They're projects that didn't get any Commonwealth funding. Indeed, Commonwealth funding was ripped out by Tony Abbott in 2014. Jacinta Allan is a regional representative from Bendigo. She's very passionate about the needs of Victoria, and she's the right person to continue to take Victoria forward, rather than for Victoria to go into what would be a shambolic collection of right wing parties all competing to race to the bottom, which is what we see with, who knows who they'll find to run as candidates here in Victoria. We know that the Liberal Party is obsessed by fighting itself, let alone how they'd go in a coalition with One Nation.
JOURNALIST: Back on today’s topic. The first pay retention payment was meant to be a temporary measure. Can you guarantee that in 2029 the government won’t be subsidising child care fees?
MINISTER CLARE: If we hadn't done this, the cost for mums and dads would have gone up by 17 or 18 per cent. That's why this is a massive cost of living measure for more than a million parents across the country, and we subsidise the system in different ways. One of, one of it's through the Child Care Subsidy that provides enormous support for a lot of parents, so that childcare is affordable for them, but we also do it through this payment. Can you imagine a Liberal Party or a One Nation party doing something like this? The answer is no. And as a result, fees for mums and dads would go through the roof. Now, as we’re working through the Productivity Commission's report on how we build a better and a fairer early education system. Step one is this – paying people more. Step two is making sure that we build more centres where they're needed, in the places where they don't exist at the moment, and that's what the billion dollar Building Early Education Fund is all about. Step three, is about helping to make sure that some of the most disadvantaged kids in our country, from the poorest families who used to miss out on being here at all, and who benefit from this sort of service and education the most, get access to a place like this, open the doors of opportunity for all kids. The old Liberal Party Activity Test meant that kids from really disadvantaged families, where mum and dad didn't have a job or weren't studying, couldn't come here or could only come one day a week, could only get the Subsidy one day a week. We've changed that to three days, three days a week. The next step after that is the work we're now doing on whether we build an Early Education Commission to help build the centre out in a way that's better and fairer, and as part of that, and the next steps we take to build a universal system, we'll look at the sort of questions you've just asked.
JOURNALIST: Will this be the last round of this particular payment?
MINISTER CLARE: We'll look at that question as we build the early education system over the next few years.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the government yesterday in Victoria let us put in their legislation to work from home two days a week. Do you think it's appropriate –
PRIME MINISTER: The question is, with respect, the idea I'm following every one of our eight State and Territory Governments, so –
JOURNALIST: Do you think it's appropriate, though, that a State Government's –
PRIME MINISTER: I’m not going to comment on eight –
JOURNALIST: Do you think it’s appropriate to be telling business how they should be having their businesses?
PRIME MINISTER: With respect, I'm not going to comment on legislation that I haven't seen that, across eight State and Territory Governments. I'm quite happy to answer things that are our responsibility, and also about the relationship with State and Territory Governments.
JOURNALIST: Would you ever make it a national policy, to legislate work from home?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not aware of what the policy is, so therefore it's difficult to answer whether it should be a national policy –
JOURNALIST: If it's reasonable to do so, would have their employees be able to work from home two days a week?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven't seen the legislation that you refer to, with respect.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask one more on One Nation – do you consider Pauline Hanson a threat?
PRIME MINISTER: Pauline Hanson has been in Parliament for 30 years. It's well known what she represents. It's also well known that you’ve got to look at what One Nation do, not just what they say. And they speak about One Nation. The implication there is that that One Nation is Australia, but what we know is that they offshore their own advertising to overseas, that they offshore their party membership processes. I find that completely extraordinary, that that would occur. They speak about working people, but they oppose every measure that's put forward for working people, such as pay increases in industries such as this, such as increases in the minimum wage. They say that they're concerned about importing labour, but they oppose Free TAFE, which is about dealing with skill shortages and training Australians for the jobs that businesses need. That's what we're prioritising. We have got migration numbers down by 45 per cent and one of the things we're doing now is to make sure that businesses can have the staff that they need trained by creating Jobs and Skills Australia, by having Free TAFE that has trained, training, more than 750,000 strands have benefited from Free TAFE. All of these measures – you've got to look at what they do, not just what they say, because there's a big gap there, and the record when people examine it, and when there is proper scrutiny rather than just advertising campaigns promoting One Nation's policies. You know, we are a great country here in Australia. We are the best country on earth. One of the reasons why we are the best country on earth is not just the natural environment that we have, it's the people, people who've come here, the workers here, these young kids in there from a variety of backgrounds who enrich our nation with their presence. And so we continue to put forward really practical measures to make a difference. You know, all of these things are all opposed. I was on Monday in Canberra at a Housing Australia Future Fund program, building public housing for people – all opposed. Angus Taylor said he'd get rid of it. Pauline Hanson voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund for a long period of time and held it up. What we see in Australia now is that the only mainstream political party in Australia is the Australian Labor Party, the only party that's concerned about cost-of-living measures, the only party that's prepared to stand up for workers' rights and entitlements and improvements in living standards. The only party that voted for the tax cuts that will come in on July 1 is the Labor Party. So, we'll look at the fringes of politics as the once mainstream Liberal Party has shifted further and further to the right. I mean, they're now in a competition and an internal debate with Tony Abbott coming back as Leader of the Liberal Party organisational wing, looking for a seat to return to Parliament, looking to come back when there's a debate, not just over whether they will give preferences to One Nation, where clearly they're going to, but over whether they actually stand or move aside. I mean, I find that absolutely extraordinary, that the once mainstream Liberal Party that sought to govern in its own right has frontbenchers in Tony Pasin and others saying that they should withdraw from races to leave it all up to One Nation.
JOURNALIST: Do campaigns like ‘fire the liar’ and the money that’s raised concern you?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they've raised money from big donors, including a plane being given by Australia's richest person. We saw what they were prepared to do when they sought donations in Washington DC, and I encourage you to have a look at that footage, which was there, where they were prepared to negotiate and commit to throwing out, using any influence they would have, to remove John Howard's laws. This is a political force which has combined with the Coalition. What we'll continue to do is continue to advance the interests of Australians and I'm very confident that Australians who don't go to fringes, Australians want a government that stands up for them. We’ll continue to represent the interests of Australians, whether they are Labor or Liberal or Green or One Nation supporters. We don't care. We want to represent everyone. We're the only political force in Australia that wants to do that. Thanks very much.