Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has committed an additional $3.6 billion over two years to lock in a historic pay rise for early childhood educators, while requiring childcare providers receiving the funding to limit fee increases for families.
The funding will extend the Government’s 15 per cent wage increase for Early Education and Care Workers, ensuring educators continue to receive higher wages without the cost being passed directly onto parents.
Albanese said early educators played a critical role in children’s development and deserved fair recognition for their work. “Early educators help give our children the best start in life,” Albanese said.
“They do incredibly important work and they deserve to be fairly paid for it.”
The Government said the wage boost, combined with minimum wage increases, would mean a typical full-time early childhood educator would receive around $255 more per week, while early childhood teachers would receive approximately $410 more per week compared with December 2024 levels.
For the first time, workers in the Family Day Care and In-Home Care sectors will also become eligible for the payment from July.
However, childcare services will need to meet conditions to access the funding, including commitments to limit fee increases for families.
“Only child care centres who agree to limit their fees for parents will be eligible to receive funding for this wage increase for workers.”
The Government said the policy aims to balance workforce retention with cost-of-living pressures facing families.
Since the wage support program was introduced, the Government says the early childhood sector has added around 20,000 workers, representing an increase of about 8 per cent.
It also said job vacancies in early education had fallen by almost 31 per cent, while childcare fees at participating centres had grown at around half the rate of services not receiving the payment.
Education Minister Jason Clare said the wage increase had helped attract more workers into the sector.
“Turns out if you pay people more, more people want to do the job.”
The Government is also linking future payments to safety standards, with childcare services required to meet national safety requirements.
From July 2027, services that fail to meet safety standards under the National Quality Standard could have funding reduced or suspended.
Clare said parents deserved confidence that children were safe while attending early learning services.
“Nothing is more important than the safety of our kids.”
The Government said the reforms form part of a broader plan to make early education more affordable, accessible and improve quality across the sector.
Minister for Early Childhood Education Jess Walsh said the changes were aimed at addressing long-standing workforce challenges. “For too long, our early childhood educators were underpaid, undervalued and overlooked,” Walsh said.
“And as a result, they were walking out the door.”
The Government said the extended wage support would help create a more stable workforce while ensuring families continue to have access to affordable early learning.
Support our Journalism
No-nonsense journalism. No paywalls. Whether you’re in Australia, the UK, Canada, the USA, or India, you can support The Australia Today by taking a paid subscription via Patreon or donating via PayPal — and help keep honest, fearless journalism alive.
