SHANNON ‘PINKY’ NEVEN, HOST: The news coming through at the end of last week regarding early childhood educators, getting a 15 percent wage increase. Can you talk us through that, please?
KATE THWAITES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY, AGEING AND WOMEN: Absolutely, 15 percent extra pay for early childhood educators, the people who work in our child care centres, this is great news for all of those workers, most of whom are women, and who have historically been underpaid for this work. And it's great news for Australian families who rely on these services and who know that we need a strong workforce in our child care centres to continue to care for our young children and it is also great news for all of us because in fact, what we're doing here is setting up our next generation of young people and we know that a quality early childhood education is part of setting them on the tracks for the best possible start in life. It's a really important move, it has been a long time coming. It will mean about a hundred dollars extra a week for those workers’ pay packets from December with more to come next year. And as a mum myself, I still drop my three-year-old off at child care most days and when I pick him up at the end of the day Pinky, the change I’ve seen in one day, what he's learnt from the educators there, not just letters and numbers but how he's interacting with the other children, how he's interacting with the educators. It's so important that we get this right for our children, and for families who rely on their services. And for these workers, many of whom are women, who do this work, and have felt for too long underappreciated.
ANTHONY STEFANOS, HOST: Because as a parent, child care can be expensive. Is there a way to make sure that this cost increase or the wage increase to the staff won't be passed on to the parents?
THWAITES: Yes, and that's really important. We do know that child care can be expensive and earlier this year, our Government did put in extra money to keep the cost of child care down for families. But what we've also said with this increase is that it can't be passed on to families and that any sort of increase of fees has to be limited to 4.4 percent for the next year because this is money that should go to educators to make sure that they are being paid for the service they provide to make sure that people want to work in the industry. I've experienced this firsthand with my child, getting that text in the middle of the day where they say, look too many of our educators are out sick, we don't have any reserves, we're over ratio, can you come and pick up your kid? That's the experience for a lot of families because we have had workforce shortages in this space so we do need to make sure that we're paying people at a level where they want to work in the industry, they continue to do the great job that they're doing and of course that those costs aren’t passed on to families.
NEVEN: Minister Kate Thwaites, as you said earlier this is long overdue, when I was utilising child care in 2009 when my daughter was of that age and we were screaming out and the call was coming out back then that our early childhood educators were very underpaid, is this really just coming about now because of the increase in the cost of living or the cost of breathing as I call it and is it just really helping out with the increase in inflation and things at the moment because couldn't we maybe even bump it up a little higher?
THWAITES: It absolutely recognises the cost of living pressures are very real for everyone at the moment and our Government is doing a lot of work to support people with those costs of living pressures through tax cuts and through wage increases as well. I think what it’s also doing more broadly though, and I said at the start that this workforce is largely made up of women and we've seen with workforces that are largely made up of women, that historically they have been undervalued and underpaid, and that's something our Government is really changing. So, last year we gave a pay increase to people working in aged care, another workforce that we really rely on. This is an increase for early educators, and I've got to say, I'm really disappointed to see that it looks like the Liberals and Peter Dutton won't back this in, that there isn't a positive plan for Australian women or Australian workers that they seem to be able to get behind and they're just being negative, once again, about a much needed increase for these workers.
NEVEN: Very much needed. That's for sure.
STEFANOS: Just lastly Kate, how about the superstars that run the after school care at the primary schools and whatnot?
THWAITES: They’re also getting a pay rise, thank you for bringing that up. So this this does cover those superstars who are doing before school care and after school care as well. Again an essential for many families I know and for so many young people getting great experience through the educators at those services as well. They will also receive this pay rise.
STEFANOS: Great news if you're in the early childhood education sector. Minister Kate Thwaites there, Assistant Minister for Women, Ageing and Social Security. Thank you very much for giving us the update this morning.
THWAITES: Thanks very much.