Wednesday, 1 November 2023

 Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (14:51): It is terrific to rise to speak about the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. This bill is really one in a long line of legislative reforms that the Allan government and the Andrews government before it have made in the early childhood space. Certainly as a parent I have been a beneficiary of this investment over the years, and I see how much of a difference it is making in our community. This bill, again, is really about giving more Victorian families access to affordable, high-quality and accessible kinder and child care, and it tackles certain barriers faced by childcare services in building more centres for Victorian families.

I will just talk about some of the details and background of the bill before talking about some of the specific local impacts. The national quality framework review of 2019 provided a coherent approach to the regulation of the quality of education and care services. This review identified that a proportion of early childhood services premises that were newly built or renovated were not in line with the national quality framework requirements. This bill seeks to address that disconnect between local building and planning laws and the national quality framework requirements and give effect to a recommendation agreed to in a meeting of education ministers. By responding to this issue, education and care providers will avoid the costly post-construction amendments that are required by the national quality framework and ensure the safety of children.

With the important changes that are proposed in this bill, we do expect the number of early childhood services in multistorey buildings to increase by giving services the assurance of having approval in principle, and they will have greater confidence to go forward with building more early childhood services. I think this has a particular resonance with me and my local area, particularly given the growth that is occurring in and around central Box Hill. Already we see a number of childcare centres. I can think of one, which is Little Lane early childhood centre, which is on the corner of Station Street and Thames Street in Box Hill. It was built as a multilevel early childhood facility. I think we will be seeing more of those sorts of facilities and more of them integrated with other buildings.

Box Hill, as I have said repeatedly in this place, is a metropolitan activity centre. It will see significant development occurring in the years to come, and that will bring with it not only a lot of residents but also a lot of workers. And for a lot of workers it is more convenient to have a childcare service close to their workplace – perhaps more so even than close to their place of residence – because they might be certain of the time of day that they are able to arrive at their workplace and leave from their workplace. As part of that, it is going to be important to ensure that along with the commercial businesses, along with the retail businesses and along with the education and health services that are in Box Hill there are also childcare services provided as part of the development of the city.

I think it is also important to note the context of what is happening in the early childhood space across the rest of the Box Hill electorate. I spoke about this briefly in the last sitting week when the bill under consideration dealt with the land acquisition powers of the minister incorporating the acquisition of land for the purposes of early childhood centres. I note that many of the childcare centres and many of the kinders that exist in Box Hill at the moment were built in the 1960s and 70s, when that was the main suburban growth front of Melbourne. In line with the education offering that was provided at the time, many of those facilities are single-room facilities, and they are on quite small parcels of land. A lot of them are on council land, and they are effectively landlocked – surrounded by residential houses. In some cases they are surrounded by open space, other council land, but for obvious reasons council does not want to give up that open space to expand the kinders.

But having single-room facilities makes it incredibly difficult to accommodate all of the needs going forward, particularly when we look at some of the fantastic programs that this government has introduced, such as free kinder and such as the pre-prep program. These programs would increase the demand for kinder programs even if there was no population growth in these suburban areas. So if you add the population growth that is coming and the attraction of families to apartment living and wanting to be close to services and close to places of employment, coupled with the advantage and the incentives that come along with free kinder and the pre-prep program, there is clearly a need for an expansion of facilities. Where an expansion of facilities cannot happen on an existing ground-level site, there are not many opportunities other than to go up and be part of a multilevel facility. I think this is a really important bill in that respect – recognising the challenges that exist in our local communities of being able to implement some of these really important, game-changing projects from an early childhood perspective.

I do want to just briefly end with a shout-out to some of our local kinders, preschools and early childhood centres – they really do an amazing job – and a shout-out also to all of the educators in this space. Their ability to manage a group of 15 or 20 three- or four-year-olds, and sometimes even younger, never ceases to amaze me – how they manage to keep all of the little ones under control. Reflecting back on my own experience as a parent when my children were that age and going through there, just to see the joy that they came back with after what they experienced at kinder and the learning and growth that they had as people was simply amazing. That is really a tribute to the amazing work that the educators do.

Another really key reform was introduced about five years ago. That relates to the kinder language program. Many of our kinders do have onsite language teachers, particularly in Mandarin. The Box Hill North Primary School have had a Japanese language program in their primary school for many, many years. In 2019, I think it was, they were one of the first to start their in-kinder program in the Japanese language. They are starting all those students one year earlier by having a Japanese language program from kinder 4. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:01): I am very, very happy to rise to speak about the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. Any chance I get to talk about child care I think is very important, and I will take every opportunity. I did listen to the member for Kew with her contribution and some of the comments made. She did reference the Mitchell Institute report, and I will get back to that, because my electorate of Mildura is mentioned in that several times. I will highlight that.

The amendments in this bill establish an opt-in, a voluntary, scheme that allows developers, builders or education and service providers to obtain approval in principle from the regulatory authorities for a centre-based service proposed to be built or renovated in a multistorey building. We do not have many multistorey buildings in my part of the world. There is not a huge amount of need for multistorey buildings, particularly of three levels and above. There are a few, but not in vast amounts. However, making amendments to allow more child care is obviously desperately needed and is something that we support.

Another move that could be made to perhaps enhance rural child care could be – this is a federal issue – when new child care centres are built, making sure there are providers ready to go in. There is a situation in Charlton, and I have spoken about this several times in this place, where a new childcare centre was promised in 2019, it was built and yet 2½ years later it is still sitting empty. As the member for Kew illustrated, there is a workforce of women in particular that that affects in a rural town like Charlton, which is in desperate need of teachers, of nurses and of accountants. There is a workforce on the ground there, but because there is no service provider in that centre these women are unable to go back to work. The nearest day care centres are in St Arnaud, Wycheproof or Donald, which means driving around the entire region for child care. Then there is the staffing issue. Having one service provider so the staff are interchangeable between towns seems like a good idea, and we are working with the Buloke Shire Council at the moment to help establish a service provider for that centre. It is really affecting the mental health of particularly the teachers in the town, who understand there is a huge need. There are teachers leaving in their droves, unfortunately, even though Charlton has got a great school and it has got a great trades program. We are losing teachers in regional areas to Bendigo because child care is available there and not in Charlton, where there is a brand new centre sitting there. So there are provisions to be considered for the centre, but we will continue to work with Buloke Shire Council, who are a very small council without huge avenues to raise vast amounts of rates revenue, particularly in a rate-capping environment, so they are a little hamstrung on what they can do.

The member for Kew also mentioned the Mitchell Institute, and the electorate of Mildura, in its entirety, having zero vacancy rates, was identified in that report from the Mitchell Institute, particularly Red Cliffs. Again it is one of those issues where we do not actually have a centre there. Red Cliffs is 20 minutes to half an hour from the nearest centre, so if parents or carers are living and working in Red Cliffs and having to go into Mildura, an hour each way is obviously very, very inconvenient. It is another thing that Mildura Rural City Council, I know, are working very hard on, and we will be of any assistance that we can.

Those were a couple of issues that I really wanted to raise today, but I also want to send a shout-out. Our days of early childhood education will come to an end after almost nine years, and it is actually quite emotional. We are quite –

Tim Richardson: You’d think you’d have passed by now.

Jade BENHAM: You would think so. Actually I was speaking with a colleague this morning who had dropped his children off at day care at 6:30 am. I went, ‘Oh, that’s luxurious.’ Our child care in Robinvale does not open until 8:30 and it closes at 5, which is great. We have a childcare centre there run by Murray Valley Aboriginal co-op, and we are very spoilt with this childcare centre – very, very spoilt. The member for Box Hill was talking about language programs. This childcare centre, being run by the local Aboriginal co-op, actually have and have had over the years – the past nine or 10 years that we have been involved with the centre – opportunities to teach children the language of the traditional owners, the Ladji Ladji and the Tati Tati, which has been fantastic, and to teach them about culture and the history of the country that we live on. Murray Valley Aboriginal Co-operative do a wonderful job in terms of child care, and we are very spoilt. We really are. The educators within the centre are absolutely phenomenal. We have been lucky enough to have some staff there that have cared for my eldest son and my youngest son, so we have several long-serving staff. It is great. The programs that they put in place there to train young Aboriginal women in particular to get them into the workforce are just fantastic. It is a really good model. There is continuity of care and relationships that the educators have developed with not only the boys but the entire family. It is coming to an end at the end of the year, so it is quite emotional. We will have to celebrate it in one way or another.

But like I said, any opportunity that I get to go in to bat for early childhood care in the regions and particularly in rural isolated towns, I will take, because it is desperately needed. It would open up so many opportunities if we could get our women, mothers in particular, who are desperately seeking to go back to work, to do that. It is just a matter of child care and available spaces. So I will continue to do that. But as has been stated, the amendments in this bill are supported by those on this side.

 Darren CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (15:09): It is with some pleasure that I rise this afternoon to make my contribution on the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. In reflecting on the elements to this bill and also the values that underpin Labor governments, what I would say is this: Labor very much recognises and values the important role that our kinder teachers and our childcare workers play in the development of all of our children – the children of the state of Victoria. Indeed I very much would like to put on record my ongoing thanks to those kinder teachers and those early childcare workers who work in my electorate of South Barwon and the broader Geelong and Surf Coast regions.

As I have said I think on a huge number of occasions in contributions that I have made in this chamber, my seat of course plays a significant role as Geelong’s growth corridor, and we have, as a consequence of that, a huge number of people that are migrating from other communities, from other parts of Geelong or indeed other parts of the state of Victoria to my region to build a home, to have a family and to raise their kids locally. As a consequence of that we, as the Victorian government, have had a huge investment program, a huge pipeline of new investments to our region, to help support those families that have made their home in South Barwon. Indeed we are building, as a part of all of that, new schools and new kindergartens, and we are seeing the establishment and development of a huge number of childcare service providers, who are equally making their way to the electorate of South Barwon, to Geelong’s growth corridor, to invest and to provide those opportunities for our young people.

I must say that when Labor are given that great gift of government we always, where we can, prioritise the delivery of these styles of services through the provision of public funding to make those investments to very much value the contribution that education makes to the young people of the state of Victoria. We know that for every dollar of investment we make in the Victorian broader education system the return to the state in years to come is significant. I was very, very proud and pleased as a member of this government, as a long-term supporter of Labor in government, to see Labor bring to life the Best Life, Best Start program, building on the very proud longstanding kinder system that we have in this state, where we are adding that additional three-year-old year to kindergarten. Of course this means, as a consequence of this investment, that we will see in the years to come young adults finishing their schooling, moving on into either TAFE or university or into the private sector for work, that much better educated, that much more ready for their next steps.

I must say as a father to Isaac and Noah I very much have valued the contribution that kinder made to their development as young people who are making their way in life. And I must say – and this can often be the case – when you get significant population change and growth, often there can be huge challenges in the delivery of these types of services and there can be at times lags in the delivery of the service. That means that for those kids in those growth corridors, whether that be an outer suburban growth corridor like mine or indeed a middle suburbs growth corridor where you have further population shift and further population growth and you see lateral population growth, we need to step in and make sure that we put in place the right public policies to ensure that we do deliver and enable those communities to be livable, provide opportunities for those families to access local services and ensure that when women are ready to return to work there are services that are in place to enable them to be able to do that. That is where this bill is I think important. It is where the reform agenda that our government has been on is important. When Labor is given that great gift of government, we will always prioritise investment in our education systems, because we do believe that having a great start to life is absolutely enabled through the provision of education. Making sure that families have the services locally that they need and making sure that every child has that profound opportunity to get a great start to life is so important.

Our state is growing. It has been growing rapidly for some time. We are seeing population shifts and we are seeing change to the way our state works. This government is making the big investments in Victoria, and I think none are more important than the investments that we are making with respect to our kinders and our schools and making sure that the services that communities need are there. As I said at the start of my contribution, we very much in all of this recognise that important work that our early educators are doing for the state of Victoria. I very much want to thank those that have taken up this career and are making a fantastic contribution to our state. Down in my electorate – again, as I say, a growth corridor – we have lots of young families. We have lots of kinders, we have lots of new schools being built and indeed we have lots of childcare workers. My electorate is full of mums and dads who are working in this space, and I very much want to continue to thank them for their contribution. I very much want to thank them for the contribution that they have made to my boys and to the outcomes of the families that live in and around my electorate. I very much commend this reform to this chamber. I look forward to it passing through this chamber, passing through the other place and of course leading to a stronger education system in this state.

 Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (15:19): Can I say it is a real privilege to be on this bill, the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023, which is another building block in our early childhood reforms. It is a really impressive journey that the Andrews and Allan Labor government has been on, which really is nation leading. Another part of that journey will be how we build to capacity over time, as our communities grow, as our suburbs change and as we bring so many more educators into our sector.

It is worth reflecting for a moment how far we have come. It was this government that brought in a four-year-old 15-hour kinder policy. We know how important that policy is for the wellbeing and growth of our little ones. Those first thousand days are so critical in the development learning journey. As someone who was for a period of time Parliamentary Secretary for Schools and really worked on inclusion during that time, I know that the transition from our early years into primary is a really critical juncture, no more so than for our kids with additional needs. That kinder experience is really important, whether it is screening for additional needs or putting support and services in place, the brain development and learning that comes and then those early childhood educators and that play-based immersive experience that sets children up for their socialisation, their development and their growth into the future. We know how important that reform was.

We were not stopping there. The landmark report from the UK that talked about the benefits of early childhood education, 15 hours of universal education, did not make a differentiation between three- and four-year-old kindergarten, so one of our policy commitments over the coming years is to roll out 15 hours of three-year-old kinder as well. That at the time was talked down. It was said that it was not going to be possible. We saw the shadow minister at the time and the current shadow minister for education talk about bold ambitions but whether they would be realised. Well, every element of our ambition is being realised and is being delivered and rolled out across our state. I have had the opportunity to open up early childhood facilities and school facilities across regional and rural Victoria, and you get pride and aspiration on every corner of the compass in every postcode when you think of early childhood education and when you think of our investment in this area.

Then we took a policy to the Victorian people for pre-prep – 30 hours of that wonderful, dedicated early years learning that will be rolled out in the coming years. This is again nation leading. Victorians can be very proud when they see the federal government talking about some of the things that we have talked about for nearly a decade in the Andrews–Allan Labor governments. When you see some of the language, the inclusiveness of early childhood education and the talk about investing in the workforce you go ‘I reckon we’re getting the policy right when others are taking that up’. When you see other states and territories taking forward to their elections policies that we announced four to eight years ago – terms ago – you know you are on a winner and you know you are doing the right thing on behalf of your local communities.

But the challenge will come with how we scale this up. We saw the housing statement released and how we are building 80,000 homes each and every year over the decade to 800,000. They are not just numbers on a paper; they are families. They are the communities of tomorrow, and it will be a different way of looking at and engaging with our local communities. There will be diversity in the housing mix, and some of our established suburbs will change over time. We have seen that across the Frankston train line and the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines. We have seen that area change and develop and grow as more families move in and the natural flow of population growth and immigration comes.

But if we are to make sure that we have the early childhood facilities and that quality offering for tomorrow, we need to do the planning now. That is why a policy that looks at in-principle support, that is a national quality framework, is a really important step, whether or not it is multistorey developments that are going through. We have got a few out our way, Acting Speaker Tak, and you know the Suburban Rail Loop will bring the significant new communities of tomorrow and a real diversity in the housing mix and the choice that people have in when they live. That will change that offering.

Instinctively I was wondering how this would go and how it would work. It was not until I visited a premises that was previously a Jeep car dealership on Nepean Highway, Parkdale, that has been converted into an early childhood facility across a few levels that I saw the indoor–outdoor play and the ratio spaces that were achieved. It really opened up my mind to the possibilities even if you do not have a ground-floor allocation for what we would traditionally think of the experience of kinder – that neighbourhood kinder model. That evolution and change has not changed at all the early childhood outcomes for our kids. If anything, it has given that diversity and the different mix and the different opportunities and made sure that we are not landlocked by what is on the ground – we can look at a diversity and mix. That makes perfect policy sense when we see the growth in population coming into the future. To see Good Start open up that premises, that early childhood offering, with a mix of child care was pretty amazing. They had an indoor–outdoor section on the second level, shared as well. It was a play-based space. They could open up the sliding doors. There was grass on that level as well – none of this astroturf stuff, it was actual real grass. It was great to see the kids immersed in that play and that experience – sand play, water play.

We know how important that is for cognitive development for our kids. That play-based learning is not just significant in early childhood, it goes all the way up to year 8 how significant that is for the learning and the development of our kids. I saw it work in that setting, and I thought that once we have some of the development in our activity centres coming through – and we already see that in a number of communities already – it will work if you have the dedication of early years managers, childcare facilities or volunteer kinder associations. If you get that magic right, you can achieve the vision and values of providing the highest quality early childhood standards. Many of the organisations servicing my community are at an exceedingly high level, which takes great pride of place in our community. When you get that right then the setting does not matter – it is then about the outcomes and how those kids will benefit into the future.

It is worth reflecting that the national quality framework was a Rudd–Gillard government era reform, and I know the member for Preston acknowledged Kate Ellis, who was a fantastic representative in this space. There are some policy people in Victoria who had a huge amount of impact on that work and what was achieved. I wonder if they imagined how significant some of those early movements in policy would be and how they would lead the outcomes for Victoria and give us the impetus to go and lead the nation as we see today. That national quality framework was proudly a federal Labor government reform, and being a member of this chamber and this Parliament it gave me great pride to think of the rollout of 15 hours of three- and four-year-old kinder and pre-prep coming online and then the free kinder policy. It is in our DNA to support early childhood education now and into the future.

I am really excited to see our communities change over time. We just had a bill last week that went to the upper house that talked about land allocation as well. This is a really important intersection of the workforce and bringing forward the next generation of early childhood educators, and I say this: whether we are talking about bills on mental health or early childhood, if there is anyone tuning in – and there are probably millions who are turning in to see us in action today; maybe there are some electorate officers who want to transition – for whom early childhood education is an option, it is one of the best careers you could choose. Can you imagine shaping the next generation of Victorians at that impactful level? It is such a wonderful time. For any member of Parliament who has had the opportunity to hear in the words of early childhood educators what it means to them to support the next generation, it is a really amazing profession and experience, and we give a massive shout-out to our early childhood educators. We need, I think, over 10,000 more down the pipeline. So if anyone is thinking what do I do, that is one of the best ways, and you have got a job for life contributing to the learning and outcomes of our next generation.

While we lift up the workforce and while we encourage and support our early childhood educators, we need to make sure that we have got first-rate facilities. With the Building Blocks program, the Shadow Minister for Early Childhood and Education reflected previously on the ambition that this government has set and how ambitious the program is. That is right; it is absolutely ambitious. But then they questioned whether we could deliver on it. All you have to do is see what has been achieved through the Building Blocks program. Unless you are not in your actual community, you would have seen development after development investing in early childhood facilities across our state. Having had the opportunity to visit them not just in my electorate but in regional and rural areas and communities as well, it is so exciting to see them scale up. So to the shadow minister and to the coalition: rest assured, you do not have to wonder, wish and hope; you just have to look at a few budget papers and maybe get amongst your community and see the transformation that is happening right now. The Allan Labor government is building the early childhood facilities for tomorrow. It was Andrews and Allan, and it will continue into the future. It is a really exciting policy agenda, and this is just another wonderful chapter book in the early childhood revolution.

 Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (15:29): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on a really important piece of legislation, the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. To follow on from a speaker of that calibre, somebody that has taken a role as parliamentary secretary in education and somebody who not just speaks with ease about early childhood education but speaks with great passion, is always terrific and gives me that reassurance that all of these levers the government has are very much in safe hands. It is an opportunity for me to thank both ministers who have carriage of this legislation. I am very conscious that Ms Blandthorn in the other place is bringing this legislation here in her capacity as Minister for Children, and I thank Minister Stitt in the other place for the work that she did previously and the work that has been brought forward also by the Deputy Premier in his capacity as Minister for Education. I would also like to take the opportunity, because I do not get to do this as often as I used to, to recognise the work of officials from the department and those who are able to work so assiduously hard to make sure that the type of legislation and reform that we have here can really go to what is important for this state and what those levers are. So I am going to take the opportunity to thank the officials who do take that work in service of the public seriously. I would also like to thank the minister’s advisers. That is very hard work.

I love the sound of children. I do wake up to the sound of children in the street, no longer the sound of children in my home. Maybe it is the distance of many years since my children were little that gives me great affection for that work. It is a tune that is pleasant to me, but I know that across this chamber – right across this chamber indeed – reform and concern and care for early childhood education and our littlest ones unite us all. We all care deeply. I think the contributions that I have been able to hear today on this legislation remind me of what happens when we are united on this common goal of making sure that what happens next and what happens with our little ones are absolutely a priority. This bill reflects the government’s work to improve conditions for families and children. Before I move from the sound of young ones, I do want to acknowledge that today is All Souls Day and last night was Halloween. There are some people who decry Americanisation, and I am not one of them. I celebrate joy in whatever form it comes in, and if that means a bunch of kids walking up and down streets and knocking on doors, I say: long may that continue. I think it is important for us to have our children at the centre of everything we do.

Some of the previous contributions I do want to acknowledge. I do not want to damage the member for Kew’s career by praising her too highly, but I will acknowledge what I thought was a really detailed and thoughtful contribution. I was pleased to hear that those opposite are supporting this legislation. I know that what she brought to her contribution was a deep consideration of the bill. I do want to comment on the member for Preston. It did cause me to reflect a little bit on what happens when we have a reformist federal Labor government in the Commonwealth as a partner. It did make me reflect a little bit on some of the other great reforms that we have experienced more recently and with a fairly significant gap. The Rudd–Gillard–Rudd government did undertake extraordinary work on early childhood, and I thank the member for Preston for taking us on that journey. I know the member for Preston cares a lot about making sure that we do have a progressive government.

Of those opposite, having heaped probably career-limiting praise on the member for Kew, I do want to just call out those who say that this is city centric. We have got a lot of members for regional Victoria on this side of the chamber, and to think that the legislation we have does not reflect the diversity of our state – well, the member for Wendouree, as she always does, captured in a really important way the reforms in early childhood. But this is not just about approval in principle for building; this is about the safety and wellbeing of our children and making sure that legislation is harmonised. So I think having so many members for regional Victoria on this side of the chamber and, in other ways, diversity makes sure that – whether it is inner-city members of Parliament, those of us who represent the growth areas, those who represent the west or those who represent the bayside or Geelong – there is plenty of opportunity for us to ensure that legislation does reflect the needs of this state.

This bill was prompted to address common design and safety challenges for centre-based services and providers in multistorey buildings, and it also reflects the recommendations for the Minister for Education and the response to the 2019 national quality framework review for early childhood education and care services to establish a premises approval in principle scheme. This is done through the amendment of the national law, which also mirrors changes to the Children’s Services Act 1996. I love harmony. I have realised that I love harmony much more than I had really appreciated. As a speaker I enjoy harmony in lots of different ways. Certainly I think that having the opportunity to have harmony in our legislation in this great federation of ours is really important, because it does mean, as we are discovering – Victoria is obviously always the leader in so many ways – that we do harmonise our legislation and do use whatever levers are available to us to make sure that we have legislation in place that does make those changes that bring us into line with other states, but it also keeps our eyes lifted up to what is going on in other places and what can be done. That is so important. The amendment bill will ensure the applicant’s proposed premises for early childhood services will align with the premises regulations, which will reduce time and cost for correct work.

I represent and serve and live in an area that is really embracing Best Start, Best Life. This legislation really does make sure that with this important reform we have what we need to be able to go forward. It does give me an opportunity to reflect a little bit on my own family story. It is not something I have spoken about a lot. My oldest two were very capable and were able to go through both three- and four-year-old kinder, and I was able to find the resources in my family to be able to fulfil what I wanted. But by the time my youngest child was ready for three-year-old kinder I was not able to financially afford for her to go to three-year-old kinder, and that placed a great burden on me. I think of it as a burden that really tore at me as a mum. I was fortunate to have family who could support me and make sure that that was something I could provide for my youngest, who is now studying engineering. But I do think of it as searing guilt, and I do not want to think of the community I serve as having that searing guilt of not being able to provide for their children the best start in life. The research is clear: we know the first thousand days are really important. This legislation that we have is really important in making sure that that other reform agenda that we have, being led so ably by those ministers in the other place, is really able to be captured. I think that we have this extraordinary track record of providing health, safety and wellbeing for children. We hold this in the highest regard.

In looking at the record of delivery that this government has demonstrated, it is abundantly clear that this legislation has come far from its beginnings, and nor is it the end of our commitment to ensuring positive early childhood outcomes. This matters to our children. During Early Learning Matters Week I visited Aspire early education centre, Imagine kindergarten, Solandra Rise Family and Children’s Centre and many more. I am fortunate to have top-notch educators. We have some of the most extraordinary early childhood educators in this great state of Victoria, and I know that Cranbourne is ground zero for those top-notch educators. We put our children at the heart of so much of what we do. The aspiration that our community have for their children is reflected in the way that they make decisions, and I am pleased that this legislation is setting us up so that we can do what we need to. I commend this legislation. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to contribute.

 Ella GEORGE (Lara) (15:39): I am pleased today to rise in the house to support the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. The Lara electorate is home to some of the most incredible early learning centres and kindergartens, and I would like to start my contribution today by thanking every single kindergarten and early childhood educator and support staff across the state for the important work they are doing day in and day out to ensure that our littlest Victorians are getting the very best start to education and the very best start to their lives. On the topic of education, my mum was a teacher. She was a primary school art teacher, a pretty fun job, and she taught me from a young age just how important it is to have great educators and just how important it is to value our educators.

Thanks must also go to the new Minister for Children in the other place along with the previous Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep for their hard work in delivering our nation-leading Best Start, Best Life reforms. On this side of the house we are a government which is truly committed to transforming the early childhood education sector. We understand that providing the best start for all children will ensure that not only they have better skills when they start school but they have more developed social and emotional outcomes and be more likely to sit exams and have higher exam scores. It will also help ease the cost-of-living pressures for families. This will help parents to return to the workforce earlier or get back to studying if they choose to do so. Evidence also shows us that investments in early childhood education have significant social and economic benefits for those children. We have seen that for every dollar invested the nation receives back $2 over the course of a child’s life. Children go on to have higher productivity and a higher earning capacity. This means that there is a reduced need for government spending over the course of a child’s life on health and welfare, and this is one of the many reasons why this bill is so important.

The purpose of this bill is to ensure that Victoria aligns with the rest of the country in adopting the outstanding recommendation of the 2019 national quality framework review, which was approved by all states and territories at the education ministers meeting. As my colleagues before me will have no doubt touched on, this bill will amend the Education and Care Services National Law to establish a premises approval in principle process which will allow developers, builders and early childhood service providers to apply to the regulatory authority for approval in principle of a proposed early childhood service premises if the service premises are to be located in a new or altered multistorey building of three or more storeys including ground level. The bill will also amend the Children’s Services Act 1996 to mirror the amendments made to the national law to ensure that the premises approval in principle is available for early childhood services provided in Victoria. Finally, the bill further amends the Children’s Services Act 1996 to mirror the infringeable offences in the national law to ensure that all early childhood services in Victoria are subject to the same regulatory enforcement mechanisms.

It is not hard to see that there is an increasing demand for child care and early learning education right across the state. Families are evolving, and we are seeing families needing to have both parents working. With this can come long working hours. Because of this we are seeing an increased need for early learning centres at locations that are convenient for families, often in more central locations, such as the CBD, where families may be working. Due to this we are seeing an increase in early childhood centres that are located in multistorey buildings. At present this accounts for less than 1 per cent of approved centres, yet it does not take a big stretch to imagine that this will increase over time. It is therefore so important that we ensure that we are improving our approval processes for multistorey buildings. This will help applicants to make sure that their proposed premises designs are able to meet the physical premises requirements in the regulatory scheme. It will also help us as the Allan Labor government to deliver our Best Start, Best Life program so that providers are not having to do rectification works. These changes will not be mandatory from the beginning. The approval in principle scheme will be a voluntary application process in Victoria so that the views of the building and construction sector can be considered.

As a local member of Parliament it has been such a rewarding experience to travel around the Lara electorate and visit some of our incredible kindergartens and early learning centres. As I mentioned at the start of my contribution, the Lara electorate is home to many early learning centres and kinders. I believe I have previously mentioned the Korayn Birralee Family Centre in this place, which I visited with the former Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep. ‘Korayn birralee’ means ‘Corio children’ in Wadawurrung language. The centre opened in January 2020 and is a state-of-the-art integrated learning and childcare centre providing facilities, programs and services for local families and their children. It houses kindergarten, day care, maternal and child health, specialist family support services and consulting rooms, all interconnected by a central thoroughfare. The centre has strong engagement with the local community. Family service organisations also work out of the site, and it is connected to a primary school. Since its opening, Korayn Birralee has transformed into a vibrant hub for families in the local area, and it is just one example of the early childhood centres that are important assets to our local community across Geelong’s northern suburbs.

As I mentioned earlier, our government is leading the way in the nation when it comes to early childhood education reforms, and our Best Start, Best Life reforms are a great example of this. The $14 billion transformation of our state’s early childhood sector will assist our local centres and our local children. Right across the Lara electorate I am hearing the community’s excitement about this investment. I am hearing that our government’s free kinder reforms are especially important. Expensive childcare fees will be a thing of the past with the expansion of free kinder, helping families to keep their household costs down. There are also increasing opportunities for parents to re-enter and participate in Victoria’s workforce. And 2023 is a really important year for this reform. Being in its first year, this government’s $270 million free kinder initiative is available to all three- and four-year-olds enrolled in participating funded kindergarten programs. This is saving families up to $2500 in fees per child each year.

John Mullahy: How much?

Ella GEORGE: $2500 in fees. And given that this year 97 per cent of funded kindergarten services are participating in this program, that means roughly 140,000 children are benefitting from this.

In addition to our free kinder program, over the next decade our government will be transitioning to its pre-prep rollout. Pre-prep will be a 30-hour-a-week program of play-based learning available for every four-year-old child in Victoria. It will double the educational outcomes for children in the year before school. With this reform we are expecting to see an increase in the hours of and demand for our early childhood centres, again highlighting why today’s amendments are needed.

In addition to these amendments, the Allan Labor government is also investing in 50 new government owned and operated early learning centres. These early learning centres, along with already established kindergartens and long day care services, will be delivering the pre-prep program. This year’s state budget invested $1.2 billion in kindergarten infrastructure projects – projects that are vital as we expand three-year-old kinder and transition to pre-prep. Importantly, this will go towards the delivery of our commitment to having 50 government owned and operated early learning centres, including new kindergartens on government school sites and low fee paying non-government school sites, creating community hubs such as what we have at Korayn Birralee, which is connected to Northern Bay College. This eases the stress on families and means that more kids can go to kinder and school at the same location, making family drop-off logistics so much easier.

Ninety per cent of a child’s brain develops before the age of five. That is why our government’s 2023–24 budget sets out additional investment of more than $1.8 billion over five years in early childhood education, building on our existing $4.4 billion investment in the Best Start, Best Life initiatives, including three-year-old kindergarten. This takes our investment to date to $6.2 billion. The Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023, along with these investments, is critical to our commitment to transforming early childhood education in this state, because we know the importance of providing the best start for all children, supporting families with cost-of-living pressures and helping parents to get back to work and study if they choose to do so. Early childhood education is at the forefront of education policy in this state, and that is why this bill today so significant. It will allow the Allan Labor government to continue with its nation-leading commitment and nation-leading investment in early childhood education. That is why I support the bill. I commended it to the house, and I wish it a speedy passage.

 Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:48): It is such a pleasure to rise today to contribute on the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. I was reflecting on the comments of the previous speaker, my friend the member for Lara, who talked a lot about evidence in her contribution. I think about the evidence that has underpinned every single step of the Education State reforms since 2014 and the rollout of free kinder since 2018. I reflect upon the time that I spent in the Department of Education and Training in that period of late 2018 and early 2019 when my friend the member for Mordialloc was at that point the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, and a fine parliamentary secretary he was as well, leading a lot of the reform initiatives of the government through that time, working with then Deputy Premier Merlino and others. It was really uplifting to see the amount of effort and the energy in the department that was rolling out that free kinder initiative. I do want to acknowledge the fine public servants like Pippa Procter and Bronwen FitzGerald and many others who have worked tirelessly for the better part of five years now to see free kinder become a reality across the state.

The reason we have done this is because of the evidence – the evidence that early intervention and providing every child with the best start in life is transformative for their life opportunities and their prospects of success, and we are enabling all of the children across this state to thrive. Early intervention matters, and it matters because it gives those children who may not have had the best start in life otherwise the loving home that every child deserves, and the opportunity to grow up in a literature- and numeracy-rich environment. It enables policy, government services and other delivery mechanisms to make a really positive intervention in the lives of those young Victorians in their earliest years, and enables them to reach school in a position where they are not already so far behind.

That evidence base continues to inform our government’s commitment to early childhood education. It informs the structure of this Allan Labor government. One of our new Premier’s first actions was to create the new portfolio of children to bring together all of those aspects of early childhood education, of maternal and child health and all of the various forms of service delivery and intervention that we know make a big difference in the lives of children. The Parliamentary Secretary for Children is here and many members of the minister’s team are in the house, and I really acknowledge all of them and the Minister for Children in the other place, who is leading so many of these initiatives which have been cultivated by previous ministers but now find their home in the new ministry for children. I think that is a really important step. It summarises, in many respects, our government’s commitment not only to early childhood education but to children more broadly and to ensuring that from the perspective of not just moral equity but of productivity and economic growth we are investing in the earliest phases of life, providing children with the building blocks and enabling them to thrive throughout their lives.

The bill itself has been well traversed – responding to design and safety concerns and enabling early childhood centres to be constructed in high-rise buildings of three storeys and above. This is not necessarily a bill that has a particular application in my own electorate of Greenvale, but it does in many other areas of Victoria as densification occurs, as population growth takes place and as there is a continuing need to ensure that service provision keeps pace with that growth. I am sure that the member for Preston, the Parliamentary Secretary for Children, can attest to the need for these kinds of measures to make sure that service delivery is being provided where it is needed most, in those growing communities along St Georges Road and in other parts of the great suburbs of Preston and Reservoir and to make sure that children and families in those growing communities have access to really high-quality infrastructure and early childhood services, because it is not enough to just rely on existing provisions.

The 2019 review of the national quality framework revealed some challenges in the capacity of government, local government and other service providers to construct early childhood education premises in those high-rise buildings. They may have been compliant with certain council planning conditions, but as the review revealed, they could have risked contravening state and federal planning laws, so this bill is testament and reflective of the important work of ministerial councils in creating quality regulation and common policy across the nation. By providing for approval in principle, the changes ensure that future applications to construct early childhood premises in high-rise buildings will have the assurance that their proposed premises designs are adequate to meet the physical premises requirements in the regulatory scheme. They respond to some of the challenges of high-rise construction that I thought the member for Preston covered really well in his contribution – issues around safety and access in an emergency, the provision of light and open space, safe areas outdoors for children to enjoy as they learn by doing and the general amenity of these facilities. Sleeping areas – I am reminded by the father of two – are also very important, as is ensuring that compliance with local planning provisions does not conflict with national and state quality assurance and regulation.

Again, I thank the minister and her team and the minister’s predecessors in this space for working so hard with colleagues nationally to align legislation not just within Victoria but between Victoria’s legislative framework and that of other states. It is indicative, I think every time a bill comes to this house focusing on early childhood education of just how important early childhood education investment is to our entire government strategy. It is not just about workforce participation, gender equity and closing the pay gap – although those things are of course incredibly important. These are legislative changes which are good for children, good for parents and good for families. They constitute, as I have said before in similar debates, landmark micro-economic reform because of their capacity to lift productivity, improve the skills base and give young people the best chance to succeed in life. And it is all at a lower cost to government in the long term, as the beneficiaries of this kind of investment are less likely to be unfortunately in positions where they may be long-term recipients of social security payments and there will be lower rates of incarceration – all the kinds of things that we know that can regrettably condemn people to live lives where they are not able to fulfil their potential and not able to thrive.

The economic boffins will tell you that these kinds of investments generate returns on investments of upwards of $2 for every dollar invested. They are really solid numbers. They are compelling reasons to be investing in this space, and of course we are investing in this space. Last year’s budget alone – the 2023–24 budget that so many members in this place have commented on – is a budget for all Victorians. It delivers for all Victorians, and it invests $1.8 billion to support early childhood education across initiatives like free kinder, pre-prep, three-year-old kindergarten and the creation of Victorian government owned and operated early learning centres as well as co-located early learning centres that remove the need for the double drop-off, making it seamless for parents and children to move from early childhood settings into school, and have that familiarisation with that school before they get there. I think particularly of the outstanding co-located early childhood education centre in my own electorate at Bethal Primary School in Meadow Heights and the new one that, thanks to the minister’s investment, is springing up overnight at Roxburgh Park Primary School. These are things that make a tangible difference in communities but also in the lives of individual children and their families.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, there is an economic and a moral imperative to invest in early childhood education and to improve the connections between early childhood education settings and schools, because children who start behind unfortunately have a tendency to stay behind. If a child arrives at school developmentally vulnerable, they are far less likely to be able to progress and keep up with their peers. Only 12 per cent of students, as I am sure the former Parliamentary Secretary for Education knows, who start school developmentally vulnerable are on track with their peers by year 3. As a former teacher I saw this in the flesh far too often. It was a cause, as I have talked about before, of deep shame and frustration that I could not, as a teacher of year 7 students, do enough to proactively intervene to provide the scaffolding for children to reach their potential, because they had already arrived at secondary school in many cases functionally illiterate and without the building blocks to thrive. That is something that as a government we are not prepared to stand by and allow to happen. It is why these investments are so important. It is why I commend this bill to the house. I thank again the minister and her team for bringing it here, and I hope it has a swift passage.

 Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (15:58): It is such an honour and I am very delighted to rise today to join the member for Greenvale, and even better to speak after the member for Greenvale as a former teacher, on the Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Premises Approval in Principle) Bill 2023. This is another important bill and one that demonstrates this government’s commitment to improving on our early childhood services here in Victoria. I commend the Minister for Children and also the Parliamentary Secretary for Children for bringing this bill forward.

I am also very excited that the minister will be coming to the Clarinda district next month to join me in visiting one of our very unique early learning centres, the Hoa Nghiem Early Learning Centre. It is a very interesting early learning centre connected to the Hoa Nghiem Buddhist College, which is a primary school run out of the temple in Springvale South. The Buddhist philosophy and the curriculum make the school and the ELC quite unique.

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the grievance debate. The member has the call when the matter is next before the Chair.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.