29 September 2010

Peter Garrett AM
Federal Member for Kingsford Smith
Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth


It gives me great pleasure to open the Early Childhood Australia Conference today in my new role as Minister for Early Childhood.

I’m sorry I can’t be there with you at what promises to be a stimulating and enriching three days.

You know better than anyone else that the early years of a child’s life are the most critical in laying the foundations for lifelong learning, health and wellbeing.

The evidence tells us that children who have a poor start to life are more likely to develop learning, behavioural or emotional problems with far-reaching consequences throughout their lives.

But what we do know is that we can turn this around by intervening early with quality early education and care programs.

The Australian Government recognises the pivotal role the early years play in a person’s life.

That’s why for the first time in our nation’s history, we have two Australian Government ministers responsible for the early childhood portfolio.

As Minister for Early Childhood I will lead our broader policy reforms associated with early childhood development.

As Minister for Child Care, Kate Ellis will focus more specifically on the delivery of child care, including having responsibility for the assistance the Government provides families and providers in the early childhood education and care sector.

I know there are some concerns about this arrangement, but let me assure you this Government is completely committed to the importance of early childhood education and the integration of education and care.

We have worked too hard over the last three years to make integration a national priority to risk any fragmentation or reduction in effort.

And it is precisely because this issue is so important that the Prime Minister Julia Gillard has chosen to make it the responsibility of myself as a Cabinet minister and my colleague Kate Ellis.

To this end, we’ll be working together on all of the Government’s early childhood functions – including early learning, child care and the National Quality Agenda.

And all these initiatives will remain within the broad education portfolio, within the Office of Early Childhood Education and Child Care which the Government created in its first term.

We have already met with the Senior Executives in the Office of Early Childhood Education and Child Care and talked about our shared agenda and the best way for continuing to drive this agenda.

So what are some of the major priorities for us in our second term?

As you know, in 2009 COAG endorsed the Early Childhood Development Strategy. For the first time in Australia’s history, all Australian governments agreed on a vision and priority action areas for future investment in early childhood.

The strategy focuses on improving outcomes for all children by building an early childhood system that responds to their needs.

In particular, the needs of vulnerable children and their families.

I am committed to this landmark agreement; to ensure all governments work collaboratively so that all of our children really do face the best possible future.

There will be no retreat from the positive early childhood development agenda we vigorously pursued during our first term.

We recognise that a well-trained and qualified workforce is critical to achieving better educational results for our children.

The Government has already committed more than $126 million over four years to improve the quality of, and train more, early childhood and child care professionals by:

• removing TAFE fees for child care diplomas and advanced diplomas
• providing additional early childhood education university places, and
• delivering a HECS-HELP benefit for early childhood education teachers working in areas of high disadvantage.

We are also working together to develop a national Early Years Workforce Strategy.

It will focus on addressing, in particular, the need to up-skill the wonderful staff we already have in the sector.

A key reform tool of the Early Childhood Development Strategy is the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care.

Its aim is to improve education and care services in the early years.

We know many services are providing wonderful care and development opportunities for our children, but we also know that in some areas we can do better.

The National Quality Framework will:

• deliver national quality standards for long day care, family day care, preschool and out-of-school hours care that will ensure consistent quality in services across the country
• decrease the regulatory burden for services through a single streamlined regulatory system
• help families make better informed choices for their children through a new quality assessment and rating system, and
• improve staff-to-child ratios and staffing qualifications.
  

Importantly, the National Quality Framework will further drive the integration of early education and child care to ensure that the boundaries between preschool and child care narrow over time.

The National Quality Framework is due to be progressively implemented, with gradual changes to ratios and qualifications, from 1 January 2012.

And the Government is committed to a raft of other reforms in this area, including financial assistance to support families in their choices.

To help give our children the best start, the Government is helping around 800,000 families with the cost of quality child care by investing $14.4 billion in the Child Care Benefit and the Child Care Rebate over the next four years.

The Child Care Benefit is means-tested to enable us to target assistance to people most in need of financial support.

The other payment is the Child Care Rebate. Working families are benefitting from the steps we took to increase this rebate from 30 to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket costs.

And from 1 July 2011 families will have the option to receive this payment fortnightly.

I’ll finish by emphasising that I’m really pleased and excited to have the opportunity to be working closely with the Minister for Child Care, Kate Ellis, to drive the Government’s early childhood education and care agenda.

As I have reiterated, all the major priorities commenced over our last term will continue to be high on our agenda. You can have confidence that you have the attention of two ministers working on our complementary agendas in one broad portfolio.

While we will necessarily work to delineate our responsibilities, you can rightly expect an integrated approach and constructive engagement to drive our coherent program of work forward. An agenda which I am passionately engaged in.

You will be hearing more from Kate Ellis on Friday morning.

I wish you all the best in your deliberations.