Wage justice for early childhood educators

Early childhood education is skilled, demanding, and enormously important work — and for too long the pay didn't reflect that. In this speech, I spoke in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers Bill 2026. The bill locks in higher wages for early educators for another two years, continues protections against excessive fee increases for families, and strengthens the link between Commonwealth funding and child safety. Since the 15% pay rise was funded, there are around 20,000 more workers in the sector and vacancies have fallen by almost a third. When you pay people properly, more of them want to do the job. -Tom