Thursday, 23 March 2023

Motions

Early childhood education

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep, Minister for Environment) (14:05): It gives me enormous pleasure to rise today to move motion 7 on the notice paper in Ms Watt’s name:

That this house recognises that the Andrews Labor government’s ambitious overhaul of early childhood education and care, with a massive $9 billion investment over the next decade, will give kids the very best start in life and will make early education fairer for all Victorian families.

Before I get into my very long contribution on this wonderful topic – and I know that Dr Bach is looking forward to this enormously – we talk about kinder quite a bit in here, but that is because it is truly one of the policy areas where in generations to come I think we can all, regardless of our political persuasions, say, ‘Yes, we were members of Parliament when these reforms were being implemented.’ I really, truly believe that these reforms are transformative in nature. I thank Ms Watt for bringing this motion forward. I know that she is absolutely passionate about the kindergarten services in her region of Northern Metropolitan. I have been to quite a number of kinders with Ms Watt, and I can attest to her story-reading skills. I can fondly recall a fantastic event that I did with Ms Watt and Ms Theophanous from the other place with Eddie Betts, that football legend who is now a children’s author and whose book was part of the first rollout of kinder kits last year. I thank Ms Watt for her ongoing commitment to this policy area and for bringing this motion before the Parliament today.

Of course, just recapping some of the changes that we are steering through in Victoria in relation to kindergarten, it is important I think to not just reflect on the latest round of reform announcements but to celebrate the fact that our three-year-old kindergarten reforms are nation leading. We are the first state in Australia to provide funded three-year-old kindergarten. We will be by 2029 providing 15 hours per week of three-year-old kinder for all children. This year saw free kinder introduced for all three- and four-year-olds across the state. I will have a bit more to say about that.

The Victorian government’s investment of $5 billion over 10 years to support the sector to deliver that three-year-old kindergarten commitment is incredibly important, and of course it is not only to support the building of the bricks and mortar and the infrastructure that we need for three-year-old kindergarten right across the state but it is also a huge opportunity to expand and train the next generation of early childhood teachers and educators. The three-year-old kindergarten reform alone will increase the workforce in this sector by approximately 5000 new teachers and educators. We have been getting on with building a very strong pipeline in that regard.

It is a staged geographical rollout, three-year-old kinder, as many of you will recall. Those members who have got regional and rural responsibilities will know that that was the first part of the state where we rolled out three-year-old kinder. We have been expanding that statewide in tranches ever since. I am pleased to say that last year was the full state delivering between five and 15 hours, depending on what stage of the rollout they were at. Notwithstanding the significant challenges of COVID in that sector with all of the issues around people being off sick and the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a really successful start to that three-year-old kindergarten statewide rollout.

Of course I could not make a contribution in this place on early childhood education and care and our reforms without acknowledging that none of it is possible without the incredible teachers and educators and educational leaders in this sector, who really are just one of the most magnificent workforces that I have had the pleasure to work with.

From 2023 we have flexible hours for three-year-old kindergarten, and from this year services can set their own hours of between 5 and 15 hours per week. This policy was set to maximise children’s access to the reform’s benefit; however, it does mean that there will be some variation in hours available to families between services and locations as we sort of flex up to the full 15 hours a week by 2029. Here is just a bit of a snapshot of how many of our kindergarten services are already delivering three-year-old kinder – it is a fairly high proportion of our kinder services: around 2700 services are currently delivering three-year-old kindergarten. I think that is a real testament to the way in which the sector – all of the providers and all of the workers in the sector – have really embraced this reform. And as I said, it is the first state in Australia to roll out three-year-old kinder.

Since 2019 there have been 179 major capacity-increasing infrastructure projects that have been approved to support the three-year-old component of our reforms alone. Just think about it: 179 major capital projects making sure that no matter where you live in Victoria your family can access a quality kindergarten facility. We have also rolled out, as part of the three-year-old reforms, 21 kindergartens on new and existing school sites, with up to 11 more, which I recently announced, to be delivered in 2024. A total of 40 kindergartens on school sites will be delivered between 2024 and 2026.

That just gives you a bit of an update on where we are at with three-year-old kinder rollout. It is a significant reform in itself, and of course on top of that the government has announced and got cracking on the Best Start, Best Life reforms, which are a $9 billion commitment over 10 years comprising some of those key initiatives, which I will go to in a minute.

One of the really rewarding things about having the honour of this portfolio is going out and talking to the workforce in the sector, who say to me, ‘Wow, we never thought we’d see the day when there would be this much investment in our work.’ And I know that they say that to me not because they just like having well-funded programs but because they are genuinely committed to making sure that that funding makes a difference to children. They are, as I have said many times in this place, the most dedicated professionals that I have ever had the honour to work with.

In terms of the Best Start, Best Life reforms, this is pretty exciting stuff. I could probably recite this in my sleep these days, but I still get excited when I talk about free kinder, because this is an absolute game changer for families. We know how tough families are doing it in terms of the cost-of-living pressures that we are all experiencing right across the country. In fact right across the globe there are really significant financial pressures on working people. To be able to provide free kindergarten for every three- and four-year-old child at participating services provides that access for children and families who might not have been in a position to be able to access and afford kindergarten. It just takes the cost right out of the equation. What I am hearing from many, many providers – and I do try to get out and about and visit as many kindergartens as I can – is that this is actually having a really positive impact on their enrolment numbers.

They are seeing families that they have never seen before participating in kindergarten this year – families who we know would have been priced out of kindergarten programs previously. It is not cheap. Before we introduced free kinder parents were paying on average about $2500 per year per child. When you consider we are in an inflationary environment – we have had interest rate increases that are really putting a lot of pressure on families to meet their obligations, to meet their payments – this is just one of a number of ways that the government is assisting families and Victorians with cost-of-living pressures. I just think about the added benefit of what it will mean for those children who may not have been participating before we took the decision to fund this. That, to me, is what it is all about.

In terms of delivering a new universal pre-prep year for every four-year-old, again, this is something that we all ought to be incredibly proud of, and it is pleasing that New South Wales have made very similar commitments in respect to creating a pre-prep year for four-year-olds. In fact it was a policy area where Victoria and New South Wales were able to do some really great work collaboratively on what our shared vision for early childhood education ought to be in this country.

So from 2025 we will begin the rollout of pre-prep for four-year-old kindergarten. It will transition over a number of years, between 2025 and 2032. Now, some of you might think, ‘Well, wow, that’s a long time, why can’t you just get on with it?’ The reality is that there are a lot of things that have to be put in place to be able to deliver this reform properly, not least of which is recruiting, you know, another significant number of teachers and educators on top of the 5000 that we already needed for three-year-old kinder.

We estimate that as a total package we will need 11,000 new teachers and educators in early childhood education by 2032. That is a bit daunting, and some of our providers say, ‘Wow, how’re we going to meet that challenge?’ But I have to say that the Department of Education division that look after this policy area are an outstanding group of people. I have nothing but praise for the way in which they have tackled this reform in a very collaborative way with the sector. They have wasted no time putting together proposals for government around how we can build a really strong pipeline of teachers and educators and attract the people that we need in this sector over the next decade.

We have committed $370 million to support that effort, and I guess the thing I want to say about these reforms is yes, they do have quite an eye-watering price tag attached to them, but we see it as an investment. We see it as an investment because every dollar that you spend in early childhood education and care you can almost double in terms of the economic benefits for the whole country. I mean, one of the wonderful benefits of these reforms, apart from the obvious, which is setting children up for the best start in life, one of the other great benefits, is it does allow for much greater workforce participation for parents, particularly women, and the economic benefits that will flow from that are significant.

Whilst we can look at a $14 billion price tag and go ‘Wow that’s a lot’, you do have to put your money where your mouth is. You cannot just come out with a strategy and not back it in with strong investment and carefully tailored initiatives. That is what as minister I have sought to do, and I have wonderful support in those public servants in the Department of Education, in the early childhood division.

The pre-prep reform on its own is a massive piece of reform. I am really looking forward to getting out there and working collaboratively with providers and peak bodies in the sector – we have got a fantastic task force advisory group that is being set up that has a range of stakeholders already represented. I am also really looking forward to having some direct consultation with workers in the sector – teachers and educators – and their industrial representatives so that we can continue to work really hard to elevate the status of that profession, to reward them for the incredible work that they do and to get behind them so that the community looks at the work that they do and really values it as well. We want people to not only choose this as a profession and a career, we want them to stay in these jobs, and we will be, through that $370 million investment, pursuing a range of attraction and retention initiatives.

We also know that the Victorian government is responsible for the delivery – I am doing all right, right? Still got 13 minutes to go, and I have not even scratched the surface. I have not even got to the Kinder Kit contents yet.

What I was about to say is there are some different responsibilities at a state and federal level around early childhood education and care. Nobody wants to get into the weeds about who is responsible for what, but it is the case that Victoria is responsible for kindergarten funding and delivery through our providers across the sector, and there are a range of different types of providers in the sector, as Dr Bach will know. But the federal government is responsible for long day care, and I am really pleased that I have been able to work very collaboratively so far with the Albanese federal government, with Minister Aly and Minister Clare, on the important reforms that the Commonwealth will be pursuing in this area, which I think will dovetail with and really complement the work that we are doing in Victoria.

Members will be aware that the federal government will be having a Productivity Commission review into this sector. It will also be looking at ways that it can reform the childcare subsidy, which is another affordability issue for families. That combined with our free kinder hours will be an absolute game changer for families that are in full-time or significant part-time work. It will enable them to know that they can go out to work, or in some cases pick up additional hours, and know that their children are getting the very best quality care and education that our state can offer.

I thank the federal government for their commitment in these areas. They have announced that they are going to be working on an early years strategy for the nation, and of course Victoria will feed into that process and make our views known; I think they have a pretty strong sense of what our ambitions are in this area. I would like to think that we are, as a nation, open to a conversation about what early years education should look like nationally. We already have two years of early childhood education and care funded in Victoria; we are the only state to do so. South Australia are in the process of a royal commission to look at whether they do three-year-old kinder. The commissioner is a former Prime Minister of this country the Honourable Julia Gillard.

Other states and territories are looking at these questions, and I think it would be a wonderful thing if Australia could harmonise its offerings in terms of early childhood education and care. All of the really progressive countries in this area know that if you invest in the early years, it has a profound positive impact on how children perform during those formative early years in primary school as well.

Tom McIntosh: Yet again we lead the nation.

Ingrid STITT: Yes, that is right. It is a no-brainer; it really is.

I do want to just take a moment to talk about our incredible workforce in this sector. As I mentioned earlier, none of these reforms would be at all possible without the incredible dedication and professionalism of our early childhood teachers and educators. I know that the last couple of years have not been easy for them, but I want to thank them for getting many, many families through that difficult time. I know that when my kids were young, there were a few key people in my life as a young parent – my maternal and child health nurse at the local council and my kids’ kinder teachers.

Sheena Watt interjected.

Ingrid STITT: We met them, Sheena. I feel like I am repeating a previous contribution here, but Sheena has just reminded me that we went and opened a fabulous kindergarten in the City of Melbourne run by the council in North Melbourne. I bumped into my children’s kindergarten teacher. My kids are 25 and 22 now –

A member: They’re not!

Ingrid STITT: They are, and they still talk about Narelle the cook and her macaroni cheese, and they of course talk lovingly and adoringly about their kindergarten teacher from back in those years. So it was absolutely lovely to bump into Michele. She is still in this sector. She is now an educational leader at the service. Melbourne City Council run a few very high-quality services in inner Melbourne. We need about 11,000 more Micheles, and I reckon we are going to get there, because I tell you what, I think people will look at the investments and the reforms that are going on in Victoria and think seriously about a career in early childhood education and care, and why wouldn’t they?

Look, it is not all about the dry stuff. There is some fun as well that one can have –

A member: Plenty.

Ingrid STITT: Yes. Lots of fun. I want to take a moment just to talk about the kinder kits, which are an absolutely magnificent initiative. Really what they are about is giving parents a bit of a package of tools, if you like, for their children to be able to pursue play-based learning at home. One of the things that we did when we were coming up with this idea of the kinder kits in celebration of three-year-old kinder – that is why we rolled them out – was that we thought, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly.’ The Department of Education got a panel of early childhood experts together who fine-tuned the contents of the kinder kits. They were vigorously assessed and tested. The kinder kits, of course, are a really great example of how you can combine government policy in these sorts of initiatives, because not only was it about a fantastic package of goodies for kindergarten children and their parents to take home, it was also an opportunity for Victorian businesses to tender to provide the contents of the kinder kit, and we have got some wonderful examples of that. We are in our second iteration of the kinder kit.

Ryan Batchelor: Made in Victoria.

Ingrid STITT: Made in Victoria. Of course there are a range of books contained in the kinder kit which are from Victorian authors, including Birds in the Bush by Aunty Fay Stewart-Muir and Jeannette Rowe; Whose Animals? Australia, written and illustrated by Jeannette Rowe in consultation with Boon Wurrung elder Aunty Fay Stewart-Muir; Where is Galah?, written by Sally Morgan; and My Friend Fred, written by Frances Watts and illustrated by A Yi. There are some examples of some really great Australian books with a very strong emphasis on First Nations and understanding the important role that our Indigenous traditional owners play in caring for our country.

I must say that every time I go to a kinder and we have a welcome to country from the kinder kids I think, ‘Wow, the future is bright, because these children understand and respect the role of traditional owners in our country.’ It is actually quite tangible when you go and listen to them do a welcome to country. I am really proud that our kinder kids have a really strong emphasis on that.

We have also got some great toys and other little bits and bobs in the kinder kit. There is the Little Green & Co threading friends kit – it is lovely; I am going to get you a kit, Mrs McArthur – the Tiger Tribe whiteboard markers and duster; the Tinta Crayons, a pack of three; and the Wild Dough playdough, which is one of my favourite stories. This is by a woman who had a catering business which was struggling during COVID. She diversified and got into playdough, so now she is the playdough queen. There are Tiger Tribe castanets, and I have had a few lovely little sessions with some of my little friends at kinders with the castanets. There is a Micador Early Start Developmental Activity Pad and also some Purebaby Story Cubes, which are beautiful, by local artist Nikita Rotumah. She is a traditional owner from the Gunditjmara tribe from the western districts of Victoria, and she also has connections to the Bunitj tribe in the Northern Territory. There are also Seed Collection Grow Your Own Alfalfa Seeds to grow at home – this is just magic, right? – and Flip Make Play family cards developed by the Department of Education.

That is just a little taste of the joys of early childhood education and care in our state. I think with the kinder kids they have gone down really well. In fact I have had grandparents emailing me saying, ‘Where is my granddaughter’s kinder kit?’ and chasing me down the street wanting to know when they are going to be delivered to an area near them.

Matthew Bach: Well, that is a scandal if people are not getting them. We are going to put in an FOI request: how many people have not received their kinder kit?

Ingrid STITT: Go for it, Dr Bach. I can assure you they have all been fully rolled out now, so everybody is a winner.

We have got a lot of exciting things going on in kindergarten reform in Victoria, and we have some wonderful kindergartens that are doing amazing things. One of the things about kinder is that it is a fantastic educational experience for children that sets them up for life, but it also so much more than that. It is often where young parents build their community and their support networks. I have seen so many examples of kindergartens that go above and beyond just the basic delivery of their kindergarten programs. The model these days is just a game changer. I have been to a number of fantastic services that not only provide kinder but have all the wraparound services for the family and are co-located. The best examples of all of this are where we have our kinder on school sites program. There are some wonderful examples of kinders on school sites. They have got the maternal and child health people there. If not full time, they come through the service regularly – a few times a week. They have playgroups there, which is a great way to not only get young parents connected with other families but introduce them to the kindergarten offering in Victoria. We have had a lot of people enrol through that pathway. There is also support for families at those services.

The future is bright in early childhood education and care in Victoria, and our government could not be prouder to be delivering the $14 billion of nation-leading reform in this policy area.

Matthew BACH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:35): I am very pleased to follow my friend Minister Stitt in discussing Ms Watt’s motion, which says:

That this house recognises that the Andrews Labor government’s ambitious overhaul of early childhood education and care, with a massive $9 billion investment over the next decade, will give kids the very best start in life and will make early education fairer for all Victorian families.

It was very good to hear from the minister as she stepped through the details of this very significant reform agenda. As she said, there is a significant reform agenda in early childhood – there has been for some time now. It is a reform agenda of more long standing under Minister Tierney in higher education and training, particularly when it comes to our TAFEs. I will use appropriate opportunities as I move forward to talk about what we perhaps could learn from those reform agendas in the primary and secondary spaces. This motion is quite right to pick up on the need for fairness. It is noteworthy that when the government announced this reform agenda before the election we on this side of the house were very quick to echo our support.

I have heard the minister talk at length on other occasions – she ran out of time this time – about an issue that she touched upon in her contribution, and that is that over recent years we have learned so much about the minds of young children and how important it is to give our youngest children, our youngest learners, really rich learning experiences. I used to be a secondary teacher, and there is too much focus, quite frankly, on those of us who have taught years 10, 11 and 12. I am afraid there is still a hierarchy in education, but there should not be. There should be far more focus on what we do in the early years, and I know this is something that the minister is passionate about as well. Far too many of our kindergarten teachers and our other amazing early childhood educators consistently get the message – I do not think knowingly or willingly from people in this place, but sometimes from people in the media, sometimes from elsewhere – that they are engaged in child care. I know that is an expression that the minister is very careful to use as little as possible. I do not criticise her for the comments she made about an ancillary benefit of really strong kindergarten being that in particular many Victorian women can use that opportunity to get back into the workforce. That is a great thing but, as the minister said, it is not the primary benefit and should not be the primary aim of these types of reforms. The primary aim should be to provide the best and strongest possible educational foundation for our young learners.

The minister said in her contribution, and I noted it, that because of these reforms we are going to need 11,000 more educators. The minister said, quite rightly, that this is a huge task, and she is really hopeful that we will be able to get there. Well, I am too, but I do think that that is something that we will all need to work together on, because that is a monumental task. I do not criticise the government for the scale of this reform – far from it. We join with the government in supporting very significant additional investment in our kindergartens and a very significant expansion of kindergarten programs and indeed of so-called free kinder, but that is a massive challenge.

There are huge workforce issues right across our education system. Right now across our primary and secondary schools just in the state system there are 1517 vacancies. That is today. That is new data from the Department of Education. I was at an education forum this morning with the Minister for Education, Minister Hutchins, and she was asked by the deputy editor of the Age newspaper if there was a strategy to deal with the crippling staff shortages that we are seeing not only in our state schools but also in our independent schools and across the Catholic sector. The deputy editor of the Age newspaper noted that he did not think he heard one from the minister. I have fully supported the government’s attempts in our primary and secondary schools to recruit more teachers. I do not have a criticism. I have asked a whole series of questions on notice, which it may not surprise you to learn I am still waiting for a response on, but presently I do not have a criticism of the government’s efforts to seek to recruit more teachers.

But we have got to have a thoroughgoing reform agenda across our schools to seek to retain the amazing teachers we have already got across primary and secondary schools, and this is relevant to the motion because, unless we have that reform agenda in place in our primary and secondary schools, we are going to lose the benefits of a reform agenda in kindergarten. So I would urge Minister Hutchins to do what I did today and have some very fruitful discussions with Meredith Peace, the head of the Australian Education Union here in Victoria, who has excellent ideas about what we can do better in our schools. I would urge the minister to note the outstanding ideas of the Grattan Institute, in particular regarding how we can honour our best, most expert educators, pay them more to carry out coordinating roles and mentoring roles in our schools as we seek to stop the bleed – stop so many of our teachers leaving.

The minister is right to note that we have got workforce challenges across various sectors of the economy, and I heard from her today an acknowledgement of the scale of the challenge. So I would urge the government to keep its eye firmly focused on that ball, because we need to get that right, and that is a massive challenge. The union has called it a crisis; the Early Learning Association Australia, the peak body, has called it a crisis – the workforce shortage we have got at the moment.

That will not fix itself just because there is significant investment in early childhood, which I welcome and support. I want to continue my highly collaborative relationship with Minister Stitt so that we on this side of the house do everything we can as well to do a series of things – certainly to continue to enhance the standing of the early childhood education and care workforce across the community. I noted the minister’s comments and I echo them entirely. Our workforce in early childhood education is so expert, highly trained, highly professional and, quite frankly, has the ability to provide so much more benefit for young people than I ever could have done in my year 10, 11 or 12 classes. That is just the nature of the emerging brains of children. Yet still out there is a perception in some quarters, and it is not a malicious perception – I think it is largely an ill-informed perception – that we are talking about child care. I hear politicians from different political parties sometimes talk about child care. I think together we can do better there. We can have a nuanced conversation about the importance of making sure that parents, in particular women, returning to work after having children have the options they need whilst also building up our amazing workforce. My hope is that through these reforms, working together, we will be able to see the participation rate of Victorian children in kinder increase.

It has been great to have a whole series of conversation recently with Ms Lovell, who was the early education minister under the Baillieu and Napthine governments. Under Ms Lovell’s reforms Victoria’s participation rate in kindergarten reached over 98 per cent – an astronomical rate. That dipped under COVID, quite understandably, but still it is much lower than that in Victoria. I think if we get these reforms right, we may be able to see an increase.

As I said at the outset, I did want to touch upon fairness. When it comes to primary and secondary education I have a whole series of deep worries about where we are headed. Before COVID hit Victorian children completed the PISA – the Programme for International Student Assessment – test, and they received their worst ever learning outcomes. What we saw then and what we have seen through NAPLAN is that there is really significant educational inequality. We know kids in our regions do far worse than kids in the city. That is not because of a simplistic reason. We have so many brilliant teachers in our regions and there are so many bright kids in our regions, but nonetheless there is still significant educational inequality. When you look across different LGAs there is still very significant educational inequality. Minister Stitt says that in early childhood that is something she is focused on. I am very pleased. I worry, though, that across the education department there is a tendency to embrace educational fads that in actual fact make inequality worse.

I have heard the minister talk about so-called positive education before, and I have deep worries about so-called positive education. We have had a discussion recently, as there have been proposed changes to the national curriculum, about ideology entering the classroom, and I am worried about that. I do not want to see left-wing ideology in our classrooms. I also do not want to see failed right-wing ideology in our classrooms, and yet this is a government that has embraced entirely positive education.

If you read Professor Mick Power’s outstanding book Understanding Happiness, you will note that positive education flows directly from the debunked positivity movement that started with Norman Vincent Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale was lauded by politicians at the time, largely right-wing politicians. President Ronald Reagan, who I respect very much, gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Peale’s great mentee was Donald J Trump. It is interesting that so-called positive education, which experts say flows directly from the failed positivity movement in America, is being relentlessly pushed in our schools by a Labor government dominated by the Socialist Left.

The founder of positive education is a man by the name of Martin Seligman, and he has previously advocated for no wealth distribution over a cap of $8000. That is an utterly radical far-right view. No reasonable person would push a view like that. His view, and the view of positive education, erases structural factors for inequality – the fact that children live in our regions, the fact that children may come from a home where English is a second language, the fact that children may come from a home in a lower socio-economic area. There are structural factors that lead to inequality. I am all for individual responsibility – of course I am – but all of us on this side of the house would note that there are structural reasons for the deep educational inequality that we see, and yet, through its commitment to so-called positive education, this government is pushing a failed neoliberal agenda in our schools that says to children, ‘Put aside your negativity bias; you too could be Prime Minister.’ And yet we know that through that process we are simply likely to exacerbate educational inequality.

The Minister for Education, who I think probably should have been replaced by either Minister Stitt or Minister Tierney at the education forum run by the Age this morning, was talking again about her commitment to positive education. What those who are committed to positive education say is that it improves students’ mental health. That is wrong. Again, I would urge Minister Hutchins and her staff to read Understanding Happiness, the outstanding book by Professor Mick Power – sadly deceased now – formerly professor of psychology at Singapore University. In that book he makes the point that Americans are easily the happiest people in the world and the most positive people in the world. They are also the most anxious people in the world.

I am all for happiness, and yet it is no substitute in education for the pursuit of purpose and meaning, for ensuring that every single learner can locate their unique passion and purpose, and in that negative emotions have their place. We should not be telling teachers you cannot mark a paper in red pen because the poor little snowflake may think they have got something wrong – well, they probably got something wrong. We should not be encouraging schools to run races where everybody gets the same ribbon – there is not a winner or a loser. We should be teaching young people to understand and embrace failure, to learn from failure as an entirely normal part of life. That is what builds resilience, not this relentless focus on keeping young people happy at all costs. Not one of our education ministers in this place but the education minister in the other place this morning spoke about the importance of fostering happy minds. I would like young people to be happy, but for me that is a secondary consideration. I want each and every young Victorian to have the equality of opportunity that they need to find their unique passion and purpose. That is what I think a great education system is about.

Now, I do not want to score points on this motion. Overall, of course, we support these reforms. My friend Mr Davis is going to move a matter-of-fact amendment that I am sure the government will support. He is going to move an amendment that inserts the notion, quite correctly too, that there is a black hole in the funding arrangements for so-called free kinder, and he will speak to that.

There are some issues when it comes to sessional kinders. As Minister Stitt knows, because I have had many conversations with her about this, my daughter goes to the most fabulous sessional kinder. There are many sessional kinders who have been disadvantaged by these reforms, and I would urge the government, quite frankly, to do better and to listen to the presidents of those kindergartens: overwhelmingly young mums who have problems and have needed to make cuts to the programs on offer at those kindergartens.

It has been noted to me in some of my discussions with early childhood educators recently that many of the details of this reform agenda are still being worked through, that what happened before the election is that a major announcement was made and that only now we are trying to retrofit some of the important details. Now, I am not going to be overcritical of that sort of process, but I would say that Minister Stitt needs to do and continue to do what she says she is doing, and that is to really listen to the amazing educators across this sector and, if some changes need to be made even now, not to be too proud to make those changes, because we all share the same aim, and that is a fabulous system of early childhood education that does, as Ms Watt says in her motion, give every single Victorian child the best possible start in life. It sounds like something Mr Bracks used to say, doesn’t it, but nonetheless it is a great sentiment.

Finally, as a perhaps second-order or third-order point, the minister referenced how fabulous kindergarten is for young parents, and again I would concur with her in that. It is one of the many reasons why I always encourage people to send their children to kindergarten to make the most of the opportunities on offer. First and foremost, it is fantastic for kids and for their learning, but it is also great for young parents, who sometimes can feel isolated.

My wife and I are part of the most amazing kindergarten community. As the minister was speaking I was thinking about the fact that it was my responsibility to deal, quite rightly and understandably, with my two girls this morning because my wife was off with some of the other kinder mums doing some yoga in a public place. She is part of a group. They have a name; they are called Femme Fitale. It is good, isn’t? On alternate mornings every weekday I do some circuit training, I think you would probably call it – although this sort of thing is not really my strong suit – with a group of the kinder dads, and we have a name as well. I do not know if it is entirely suitable for this place, but our name – and we have merchandise as well –

Ryan Batchelor: This could go anywhere.

Matthew BACH: No, we think it is very clever – it is not really. It is WTF, which stands for ‘witness the fitness’. So every morning of the week either my wife or I are out and about with fabulous people from our kinder community, and then that means that we socialise more, which means that our children get to spend more time together. So I agree with the minister on those points.

There are some problems with the government’s agenda in early childhood. Principally there is a massive workforce crisis, as our unions have rightly said. The minister says that she understands that. I take her at her word on that and that she will work assiduously to try to overcome those problems. They are very significant, and I want to work with her on that. There are problems with the funding model, and I would urge the minister to continue to talk to the leadership of our kindergartens, especially our sessional kindergartens, who have been disadvantaged through this reform. Nonetheless, I am pleased that this is one of many areas where, to the greatest possible extent, we can join hands together in an effort to get the best possible outcomes that we can, in this case for young Victorians.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (14:54): I do appreciate being called to speak today on what is my first motion. Of course I moved that very proudly on the first day of this, the 60th Parliament. It is truly an absolute pleasure to rise and speak proudly on a motion about the Andrews Labor government’s historic reforms and ambitious overhaul of early childhood education and care. We are investing some very big numbers, a massive $9 billion over the next decade, to transform Victoria’s early childhood sector, and I know from the previous remarks of the minister that this is just so very, very significant.

This will absolutely give our Victorian kids the very best start in life and will make early education fairer for all Victorians, saving families all around our state thousands of dollars a year and, importantly, supporting Victorian women returning to the workforce. Our reforms are without a doubt bold and ambitious, and we are getting on with them now because that is what Labor governments do. Might I just acknowledge the contribution made by the Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep in this place the Honourable Ingrid Stitt and acknowledge her incredible power of work and leadership, advocacy, compassion and courage to lead such significant reform in early childhood education and care. Indeed a great deal of what we do in government we should all be proud of – this side in particular – including the track record of achievements and wins we have delivered in early childhood education and care and are still to deliver in the next decade with Best Start, Best Life. Minister Stitt has been absolutely central to that.

May I just take a moment to say that our Best Start, Best Life reforms are proving extremely popular in my community of the Northern Metropolitan Region. I have heard from folks all around that childcare fees have been crippling family budgets, and indeed the figures show that the typical household is spending up to 20 per cent of its income to cover these ever-increasing costs of early childhood care and education. For far too long childcare fees and the childcare system have been set up against working families. While more and more dads may be staying home with kids than ever before, it is still predominantly mums who do most of the child care. Our reforms will give primary carers, predominantly women, this opportunity to get back into the workforce. The truth of the matter is that if the childcare system has been set up against working families, it is predominantly women that are most disadvantaged by this. Lack of access to child care and early childhood education takes almost 27,000 women across the state entirely out of the workforce. It is holding them back, and because federal subsidies go down as a family’s income goes up, many families work out that going back to work just does not add up. It is bad for primary caregivers. It is bad for our state’s economy too. These changes and reforms we are rolling out mean families can make the choice about what is best for them and what is best for their little ones, not just what is best for being able to pay the bills. These are indeed massive reforms. They are going to make a huge difference for family budgets, for parents, for our economy and most importantly for our littlest Victorians all across our state.

Of course I will join the remarks of the minister in giving an acknowledgement to the incredible work of our early childhood educators right around the state, who set up our kids for the very best start in life. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the very good work of the United Workers Union, the union for early childhood educators, for all that they do campaigning for a better sector and better rights for early childhood workers and many other cohorts of the hardest working workers right across our state.

We already know that 90 per cent of a child’s brain will have developed before the age of five, so it is absolutely critical that we get this right. Early childhood education and care has a life-changing impact on the development of Victorian kiddies. The Andrews Labor government’s Best Start, Best Life agenda will absolutely deliver on that. From this year we have started rolling out free three- and four-year-old kinder across the state to ease the rising cost of living for Victorian families while also ensuring every Victorian child can access a high-quality early education for free. This is without exaggeration or hyperbole; honestly, it is so life changing that there are many big words required to describe the life-changing impact on Victorian kids and their families. This means that right now any family with a three- or four-year-old will not have to pay anything for kinder – a saving of up to $2500 per child every year. Under this $270 million program, up to 140,000 children will go to kindergarten for free this year in more than 2750 services across Victoria which are offering free kindergarten this year.

This is a 97 per cent coverage of services across the state. Pre-kinder is available at both long day care centres and in sessional kindergartens. Families do not have to be out of pocket, and they will not have to claim the savings back. Participating kindergarten programs will receive funding directly from the Labor government. We also know that families are struggling with the cost of living. Free kinder will make sure that no child misses out and save families thousands of dollars.

In addition to kinder across the state open to all Victorian families, four-year-old kindergarten will also be transitioning to pre-prep over the next decade, becoming a universal 30-hour-a-week program of play-based learning available to every child in Victoria over the next decade. Pre-prep will be rolled out progressively, starting in regional Victoria. From 2025 pre-prep will commence at Ararat rural city, Gannawarra shire, Hindmarsh shire, Murrindindi shire, Northern Grampians shire and Yarriambiack shire. More LGAs will roll out each year, with families in metro Melbourne to have 20 hours of pre-prep from 2030 before all children have access to 30 hours of pre-prep from 2034.

This pre-prep rollout will also give early access in 2026 to Aboriginal children and vulnerable children, no matter where they live. Disadvantaged children whose parents hold a Commonwealth concession card will also have access in 2028. Depending on whether rollout time allows, selected LGAs will at this stage grow the workforce and deliver the infrastructure required to deliver this life-changing program. Pre-prep will be delivered through kinders and long day care centres, creating a high-quality universal program to give four-year-old kids the opportunity to socialise and learn through play.

It is not just childcare costs that are holding back Victorian kiddies and women and their families. Child care is also notoriously difficult to access, with some women having to sign up to waitlists as soon as they find out they are pregnant. Some families are forced to travel well outside their suburb, adding time and stress to their daily commutes, or even enrol their kids in multiple centres to get the days they need.

In concert with all these reforms well underway, to truly give Victorian kids and families the best start for the best life and to help address the current shortage of available childcare places, the Andrews Labor government will establish 50 new government-owned and affordable integrated childcare centres which will deliver child care, kinder and pre-prep. These centres will be built in locations across Victoria that have the greatest need and will make it easier for families to access education and care. Where possible these centres will also be co-located with schools, to avoid the dreaded double drop-off, and alongside hospitals, TAFEs and major employers to create convenient access for working parents.

Because not every parent works Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, where there is demand, and I believe there will be, centres will operate extended hours and on weekends so that parents working in industries like hospitality, events and health care have more support and more options. I will just add aged care to that list too, because aged care workers work all around the clock. These centres will make it easier for families to access child care and with low fees. They will also make it more affordable, meaning it will be easier for women to return to work when and however much they want to. This Best Start, Best Life investment is good for more than just play-based learning too. Let us not forget that building these 50 new kinders will support more than 8000 construction jobs for a growing, thriving Victoria.

I have gone at length over the ambitious and bold reforms under our Victorian government’s Best Start, Best Life program. They will absolutely make a profound difference for a whole generation, and more, of Victorian children and women and their families. Let us not forget how good this is for other Victorians, not just young families. Independent analysis conducted by Deloitte shows that Best Start, Best Life will boost Victoria’s workforce by about 25,000 full-time employees and increase the state’s real gross state product by between $1.9 billion and $2.8 billion in 2032–33. For every dollar we are investing in a child’s early childhood education and care, we will get back $2 over their life through higher productivity and earning capacity as well as reduced government spending on health and welfare or crime. Investment in early childhood education is an investment in out littlest learners, in our Victorian families and in our whole state, and that is why I am so proud to be a member of the Andrews Labor government, which recognises this and is absolutely committed to bold action and courageous reform and so much important work in this space.

With that, I will take the time available to me to give some recognition to the early work of the Victorian pre-prep task force, which is bringing staff, unions, early childhood experts, local government, kinder and long day care providers and other stakeholders to the table to help design the pre-prep curriculum and inform the implementation of the program.

I will also take some time now, with the indulgence of those in the house, who I note are all men – very, very good to note your very profound interest in this topic; thanks for being here to hear me out – to say that we do need to pay recognition to some of the kinders, early childhood centres and childcare centres in our electorates. For me, in the area of Northern Metropolitan Region, I have visited a few in recent years. One that comes to mind is the Gowrie Victoria early learning centre in Docklands, to which I accompanied Minister Stitt to officially open their facilities. The state-of-the-art kinder facility offers two children’s rooms and outdoor learning terraces on the first floor of the new vertical Docklands Primary School. Being co-located within the school grounds, it makes it easier for parents around the area to ditch that dreaded double drop-off.

The minister did speak earlier about the fantastic kinder kits. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to go to Yappera Children’s Service, where I joined the minister, the member for Northcote in the other place and AFL legend Eddie Betts –

Members interjecting.

Sheena WATT: You better not be saying anything about Eddie Betts. He is a legend of our game.

Members interjecting.

Sheena WATT: Oh, okay. I will take it back. My apologies. I am deeply passionate about Eddie Betts’s book My People, which I had the great privilege of reading to three-year-olds at Yappera Children’s Centre. It is a great book, and it is great to see this new life for Eddie as an author and the book getting out there in the kinder kits right across the state. It was a huge, huge hit. Big thanks to Yappera director Stacey for having us over at their beautiful centre.

We did also hear some remarks about Lady Huntingfield kinder – that is the one in North Melbourne. I also particularly enjoyed my visit to Raleigh Street Community Children’s Centre. The Gowrie early learning centre in Carlton North has got some real innovation there that I think is worth everyone learning a little bit more about. I have spoken a couple of times now about Powlett Reserve Children’s Centre and kindergarten, which just earlier this year opened a new kids’ kitchen, and it was absolutely marvellous to see how excited the kids were imagining what will be coming out of that kitchen.

On these visits one of my favourite things to do is to read to the little superstars in the kinders some passages from the picture book Respect by Aunty Fay Muir, Sue Lawson and Lisa Kennedy. This is one of my favourite passages from the book:

Our way is old, older than red earth, older than flickering stars. Our way is respect.

Thank you very, very much for the opportunity to talk about Labor and what we are doing for our youngest Victorians.

Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (15:09): I am not going to tell the government how great they are; they are good at doing that. I am not going to tell the government how bad they are; the opposition are good at that. What I am going to do is talk about the sector. As a later-in-life dad my experiences with this are, let us call it, current. Becky is three and has been going to day care now for just on a couple of years. That has been my introduction to the whole thing. To be frank, I did not know what to expect. I was quite dubious about the whole thing to begin with. Back when I was younger – I am not as old as some in here, but I am not as young as others – this sort of day care just did not exist. Day care was Mum, and if the mums were working it was usually someone else’s mum. That was just the way it was. Things move on.

David Davis: Grandmas.

Jeff BOURMAN: And grandmas, yes. But as time moved on, the time came to decide whether to put Becky in day care or not. I thought, ‘I’m not really comfortable with this, but we’ll go with it. We’ll see what happens; we’ll give it a month or two.’ Anyway, it has blown my mind what is going on. In fact I feel bad calling it day care. The level of education that they get when they are being cared for is astounding. She knows things that, in some cases, I do not know. She comes up with words that I have not taught her. I am starting to have a conversation with a three-year-old, and every once in a while she beats me in an argument, which is not good.

I think the people that are doing this and the sector are grossly underappreciated. I do not know what the $9 billion will be for and all that sort of thing, but I think the amount of remuneration that the staff get is nowhere near what they deserve. They obviously do not need to do a full degree as you do to be a teacher, but they are teaching these children. They are teaching them life skills as well as how to reason and about their feelings. The sole feeling I had has been gone for so long it has taken me a little while to figure it all out. They are teaching them how to be little people but not teaching them what the parents should be teaching them. That was one of my worries. I was worried that one day I would come back and find that they had made a little human that was nothing like what I had expected or predicted.

I watch them coming along and I watch all the other little kids. Watching two three-year-olds have a conversation is probably one of the most heartwarming things I have ever seen, because they are talking with each other. It is amazing. There are a lot of reasons for which I wish I had been a dad when I was younger, but being older I appreciate it, I think, far more than a lot of people do. I do not take anything for granted. Every day when I wake up, whether she is having a good day or a bad day or whether I am having a good day or a bad day, it is plain awesome. I look upon the stages and I think, ‘Wow, that was a better stage than this one,’ but then when we get through the stage that we have just had, I look back at that stage and remember how good it was. Every stage is good. Every part of it is worthwhile. The people at the day cares and early learning centres and those sorts of institutions are a huge part of that.

That is really my whole thing. I just wanted to give a bit of recognition to them. They do struggle at times to keep staff. As good as that job would be, it does not pay enough. I do not know what the government are going to do with their $9 billion, but perhaps they should help with wages. On that note, I will zip it up. I do believe we are going off to Mr Davis. I look forward to that conversation.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:14): I am very happy to follow on from Mr Bourman on this very important issue, Mr Bourman being another member from the Eastern Victoria Region like me. What I love about a conversation like this, for me as a proud member of the Labor Party and Labor movement, fundamentally is generational change. I have such a deep passion and interest in it. I have touched on it before, and I am sure I will touch on it again in many contributions in the future: generational change is what drives me to be in this place.

But before I go to that, there is an element of what Mr Bourman said which I think is beautiful. It is joy-filled and it is loving. Having been on construction sites for a lot of my life and living regionally, as Mr Bourman does, the joy, particularly for men – we talk a lot about the changes in society that we are making and those generational changes that are occurring – of having children and being engaged in that early educational time of a kid’s life is profound and is life-changing. The way kids engage with each other and the level of intelligence they have at a young age, which many members are talking about and I will talk to as well – the emotional and intellectual advancement that occurs in the first five years of life – I think is a really good point. I think why this investment we are making is so popular – apart from being something that is crucial to the productivity of this state, crucial to the emotional wellbeing of individuals, crucial to academic outcomes for all the kids that are going to go through – is this very, very personal connection that all Victorians have to our most precious asset, and that is our kids.

I mentioned before the generational change element of this. Every child is going to have access to early education – play-based learning that we know benefits children. Before the age of five, 90 per cent of their brain development will occur. This is incredible for equality. We are setting up a level playing field for all kids in Victoria to have equal opportunity to a start in life when it comes to early education. Some of the contributors have talked about how things were or perhaps lack of access. It is just fantastic to think that over the next decade we are going to see four-year-olds get 30 hours of this fantastic play-based early education. You are going to hear me talk about early education in this place non-stop. The work that the minister has done is nothing short of commendable.

I have been out to Yarram and the early education centre. The town of Yarram is beautiful. It is thriving. It is growing. The government has announced $2 million for them in their growing early education centre. Another two modular units will go in this year, which from memory will support another 66 kids being in the centre. The centre is doing great work, as are all our centres. I actually know a number of early education workers through different paths of my life. They really are such beautiful people, such patient people and people that are so interested in the wellbeing and growth – nurturing that development of our kids. It is fantastic.

Recently Minister Stitt announced that Korumburra Primary School will have co-located rooms. I am going to come back to co-location because I think that is just so beneficial to kids, to families, to community. In fact it makes community. Korumburra are looking at $2 million. I believe it is another two co-located rooms for another 66 kids. This is a great thing for Korumburra, a beautiful town, a town with a growing number of kids.

Another story I want to highlight is that I recently attended the opening of The Herd, which is co-located with the Uniting AgeWell aged care centre. This is an incredibly beautiful story. You are talking about our aged care residents. I am sure many of us are now familiar with the program the ABC ran. Fiona and someone whose name I forget, but two sisters, four or five years ago saw the work that was going on in Seattle in the very early stages of bringing children and aged care residents together. They drummed this idea up. They shopped it around. The state government has invested. Uniting Care have invested. A whole lot of philanthropists have invested. It is fantastic. You are bringing together on one site two age groups of people that are incredibly – just coming back to that love and joy-filled aspect of it – important groups to our society, to all of us basically. We have all had grandparents, grandparents that many of us cherish and love dearly, and we want to see them living in a really respectful and rich environment, and of course our kids.

This centre actually has glass windows between the facilities so the aged-care residents can sit there and just watch the kids and observe and just take it all in. On the day it was fantastic. We had the two facilities come together, and there were animals: there were bunny rabbits, there were dogs, there were ducks, there was everything – baby goats – and I am sure I have missed a few of the animals that were there. But, my gosh, the joy that was in that area for the staff doing incredible work at both ends of the spectrum but also for all of those students and aged-care residents was just a fantastic thing. I wanted to touch on that because it was a beautiful moment, and it will be a beautiful ongoing project. I hope we do see more of those. It is $9 billion over 10 years. As I have said, we do know it is going to result in healthier, happier – Dr Bach made some comments earlier about happiness, and I think one thing he missed was joy-filled children. I have touched on the fact that four-year-olds will have 30 hours of this learning. That is incredible. That is setting us up so, so well. And three-year-olds will have 15 hours by 2029.

I think the fact that we are also investing in the government-operated centres where they are needed most is really important. I talked about equality before, and I think making that investment where it is needed, where families are struggling to get access to early education and where families are having to travel further for work because of geographically where they live gives not only the kids the access to everything they need emotionally and academically but also the families. The co-location, again from a productivity perspective, is incredible and so valuable, whether it be the double drop-off or whether it is the maternal and child healthcare facilities being in the same place, or the primary school. It is that benefit not only to the families but also I think to that community-building element. I forget who it was earlier – it might have been Dr Bach, actually – who was talking about the relationships that he and his partner have made with other parents. I think that is something that cannot be missed. When we are doing this really well, which so many early education facilities are, that involvement of family, that involvement of parents, that involvement of friendships and that continuity right from the very start, at the age where kids are entering early education, through into primary school and through into high school, building that unbreakable mesh of community to wrap around the kids and the parents in what can be quite a difficult time – having kids is not always bubblegum and hula hoops; there is the odd day where they can be a little bit trying – is incredible. I do not think that we can underestimate the life-changing impact of all those elements.

I have touched briefly on productivity. We have the immediate productivity. Member for Northern Metro Ms Watt made some great points about how it is predominantly women who are at home, it is predominantly women that are caring for children and it is women who are out of the workplace and seeing potential opportunities in work go by or perhaps missing out on super. Historically that has absolutely been the case. To be able to enable parents but particularly women to get back to work is fantastic for productivity, and there are some stats there I might come to before I finish. But there is also the productivity that is inbuilt in an entire generation of kids coming through, in their academic endeavours throughout primary school and high school, whether they are going to train and work in a trade or a service or whether they are going to go on to university, get a degree and contribute in some academic way to our society. The inbuilt value, the inbuilt productivity gains are going to be there.

I love the saying – I do not know if I am going to get it right – ‘There’s nothing as good as an old man planting a tree, the shade of which he will never feel.’ Fortunately some of us here are young enough that we will see the gains of all this and see the value, but I think it speaks a lot to this government’s focus and interest that we are investing in a generation of kids and that the value, the benefit, will flow through not just for decades but for this entire century and gain momentum as it goes.

The other thing I should say is that for every kid that currently is using the system this year, the family are saving $2500 per child. This is fantastic in that you will not see parents having to go out and find work just to pay the kinder bills. It means you can actually use that money to get ahead, not just to keep afloat or stay where you currently are.

I mentioned this briefly before about the educators, but I do not think it can be understated, and I think Dr Bach talked to it earlier: the talent and the skills that our early educators possess, and that is only going to grow over the next decade, is incredible. Thousands and thousands of early educators are going to join the workforce as thousands of kids have access to this early education. Something I am absolutely delighted about is that with these 50 new community-based education centres that the government is investing in, let alone all the other centres that are coming online, we have got a huge number of construction jobs – and we know that the economy thrives when construction is doing well – but also our early educators and, additionally to that, all the other staff that are around the centre: those working front of house, our cooks, our cleaners. It really is building a very, very big and very robust complete mesh of staff that are there supporting our kids all the way through.

I think I may have touched on but not mentioned the number before – 140,000 kids will attend kinder for free this year, which is –

A member: It is remarkable.

Tom McINTOSH: It is remarkable. It is absolutely fantastic. For those families that have found it historically difficult to find the care, to piece together the education, that is going to make a huge difference. We heard – I forget whose contribution it was earlier – of families worrying as they are having their kids about where they can get placement. All this investment, these co-located centres, these new 50 centres, are going to take that pressure off and make it easier for families. In that family planning, those conversations, that thinking, it just relieves that stress and that burden –

A member: Peace of mind.

Tom McINTOSH: yes, peace of mind – that just simply should not be there and will not be there.

I have just come across a stat in my notes: lack of access to child care and early childhood education takes almost 26,600 women entirely out of the workforce in Victoria. So to be addressing that is phenomenal. Independent analysis from Deloitte shows that Best Start, Best Life will boost Victoria’s workforce by up to 24,800 full-time employees and increase the state’s real gross state product by between $1.9 billion and $2.8 billion in 2032–33. I am so happy to have spoken. Thank you for allowing me to speak to this.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:29): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this motion that is being debated today on child care and the overhaul of early childhood education. I make the point that the reason we are debating this is the government has run out of legislation, but nonetheless this is an important topic. I do agree with the government, but more broadly with other governments in this country, about the importance of early childhood education and the provision of accessible early childhood education and affordable early childhood education.

I pay particular heed and give great credit to Matt Kean in New South Wales, whose productivity commission has looked at early childhood, and I am hopeful that in New South Wales he and the government up there do well. They are actually a government that have performed very well. The focus on productivity up there has been in stark contrast to the focus down here in Victoria. But this motion does talk about the government’s proposed investment in early childhood. A number of parts of that are in the budget, and it is very clear that that is the case, and we certainly supported that prior to the state election and have always supported expanded early childhood.

My colleague and I were talking earlier about Ms Lovell and the time she was Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development. She did a remarkable job in expanding early childhood education. One of the things that she impressed upon me and others was the international evidence about early childhood education and the long-term benefits that are delivered many, many decades into the future. The performance of people, their pay and their satisfaction in life at age 40 or 50 is closely linked to the quality of their early childhood education, so there are very strong studies internationally that suggest that there is a long-term benefit for the community from investment in early childhood education. But it does have to be the right investment too, and I want to say something about that.

We support that early childhood investment. We support the provision of a greater expansion of kinder services across the state. There are some obvious areas where there are challenges. At the edge of the city, in particular in the growth areas, there has been a shortage of good quality early childhood services, and some country towns, with the growth in those towns, have been lagging significantly under this government. It is also true in electorates like mine that there are challenges in the provision of early childhood services, and indeed the government has lagged significantly there.

One of the problems with this government is it is addicted to the high-level rhetoric, but it is never very good at delivering the details and the actual service aspects that are associated with that high-level rhetoric. That is one of their great problems, and this is such a case. In this case they have made big announcements and talked a big cycle, but they have actually not got a lot of the deep work done. I am going to quote some work in my own electorate. A number of people in this chamber will be familiar with this work at the City of Monash, who are very supportive of the government’s announcement and investment and their plans for increasing to 30 hours four-year-old kindergarten and also the introduction of three-year-old kindergarten broadly. They say that it will cost $70 million in the City of Monash. It seems that that $70 million for three-year-old kinder is not funded by the state government.

In terms of the broader approach, there are six lead sites in the City of Monash. This is a briefing provided to MPs of all political parties, and I am reading directly from some of the Monash work now. It is clear that in the six lead sites, of the $24 million cost, only $12 million will be provided by the state government. So there is a capital problem that has not been dealt with by this government, and that is what I want to call attention to today – great high-level objectives agreed by all, the funding agreed by all, but actually the government has not done a lot of the work to implement the key aspects of the program, and the program can get into significant trouble in that way. For that reason, I want to move an amendment to this motion, and I ask if that might be circulated. I move:

That ‘families.’ be omitted and replaced with ‘families, but has failed to fully fund the required associated capital works leaving a black hole in funding.’.

This is actually very serious. You cannot implement three-year-old kindergarten expanded in the way the government is talking about unless you have got the kinders built. The kids have got to go somewhere. The beautiful little mites have got to go somewhere. You have actually got to have the money, and you have actually got to make sure that the capital works are done. If the capital works are not done, the kid cannot go to kinder. That is the fact. If the new kinder is not built because there is not enough money to build the kinder, the kid will not be able to go to kinder. That is a very clear point, isn’t it? People should understand that the state government has got to get in and do this with councils, negotiate it and actually provide proper funding. It is no use leaving a black hole of 50 per cent of the funding at a state government level and forcing the councils to pick up the tab.

This is a classic state government cost shift under this government. You have got rate capping over here, squeezing the councils here, making them pay for the extra capital works, and that is a straight hit on ratepayers. So people need to understand that they are great objectives, agreed objectives, to expand the provision of early childhood services and kinders and the full works, but you cannot do it without putting in a proper capital budget, and the state government has not put in a proper capital budget.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, no, they have not put it in. We are actually talking council by council. I am using Monash as an example, but this is true across almost every council in my electorate. The councils have got significant issues with how this is being implemented. They have not been given assurances about full funding of the capital cost, and that is a sleight of hand by the government. That is what it is; it is a sleight of hand. They need to be honest. If they are not going to fund it properly, if they are not going to fund it fully, they need to come up and say that.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, you will be very happy to say that. I am sure you will be very happy to demand that the full capital cost is provided by the state government rather than being forced onto the local government and thereby onto ratepayers. That is actually what we are talking about; we are talking about ratepayers paying more in a surreptitious and sneaky way because the government is doing a cost shift onto local government. State government is responsible fundamentally for its policy here.

A member: Surreptitious?

David DAVIS: Well, it has not been honest, has it? You tell me where it is in the government documents. I asked the minister exactly this question just the other day: you point to the cost shift, you point to the black hole in the government’s documents – where is the additional capital funding? The minister when asked in this chamber could not provide a satisfactory answer about, in this case, the City of Monash. I am using that because it is in my electorate. It is well understood by a number in this chamber who were actually at that briefing and know that what I am saying is fundamentally accurate: that there is a shortfall in the City of Monash in the capital funding for these projects. They are important projects. They are supported. The state government has talked a very big game but has not properly funded the big game, and that, I think, is a very, very, very big problem for the community. Kids will not be able to get into the kinders unless the capital funding is there, and hitherto it is not.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:37): I rise to speak in favour of the motion. The motion that Ms Watt, my wonderful colleague from the Northern Metropolitan Region, has put forward is:

That this house recognises that the Andrews Labor government’s ambitious overhaul of early childhood education and care, with a massive $9 billion investment over the next decade, will give kids the very best start in life and will make early education fairer for all Victorian families.

Frankly, Acting President Berger, as I am sure you can, I fully agree with Ms Watt in that assertion that it is a terrific announcement. It is a terrific set of packages, of policies, that we have put forward. I congratulate Minister Stitt for all her work. We have members opposite going on about black holes. There is $9 billion of funding – $9 billion of funding – over 10 years to transform Victoria’s early childhood sector. I join Ms Watt and my other colleagues, including Mr McIntosh, who is in the chamber with us today, in commending the Andrews Labor government’s ongoing commitment to improving our state’s early childhood education system. This is just one part of it. It is not just early childhood; it is primary, it is secondary, it is all levels of education that this government is putting the work into to make Victoria the Education State, from tertiary right down to early childhood.

I had the privilege with you, Acting President, and in fact Mr Batchelor as well, of visiting Monash University several weeks ago, where we saw the amazing things that are being done there, the absolutely amazing research that is being undertaken by students. They are doing robotics trials in the United States, and they are winning those trials as well. It is absolutely fantastic to see what they do, right from that level through to the new secondary schools that we are building, the new primary schools that we are building. In my region alone, the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region, just this year Quarters Primary School in Cranbourne West opened. It is a fantastic new school for that growing community. A new primary school in the Berwick electorate will be opening in the coming years as well, which is absolutely wonderful. I look forward, as I do with my other colleague in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region Lee Tarlamis, to that other primary school opening very shortly.

This is a government that backs itself and does the work in making this state the Education State, and we will continue to do that work. We will continue to do that work, as I said, in tertiary, as I said, in secondary, as I said, in primary and in early childhood. This is a once-in-a-generation reform. It is committed to giving Victorian children the best start in life.

If I may also say, most relevant to this motion are the transformative reforms to early childhood education. The Andrews Labor government has announced, as I said, $9 billion over 10 years to transform the sector. The changes that this commitment will implement include dramatically improving, firstly, access to three-year-old kinder. We are also the nation leaders in three-year-old kinder, with the program having started this year. It is going to ensure that no child misses out on a head start to their education.

The benefits of starting kindergarten earlier are clear. There are proven benefits to cognitive and social skills on average for children who attend two years of a kindergarten program as compared with those who attend just one year of a kindergarten program. These benefits extend to the development of language skills, early reading and number comprehension as well as non-verbal reasoning skills, concentration, independence and social skills – skills that no doubt come in very handy in this chamber for us all too. I applaud this policy of expanding kindergarten access and making kinder free, and perhaps some in the chamber do not concentrate as much as we would like. Someone opposite, I see, has already left the room. Not sure where he has gone off to, possibly a more entertaining place than this.

I do applaud this policy of expanding kindergarten access and making kinder free, rightfully ensuring the proven benefits of kinder are available to all families, saving thousands of dollars per child per year. This not only ensures that all children can get the best start to their education but also saves families thousands of dollars and allows parents, especially women who want to re-engage in the workforce, to do that sooner. The Best Start, Best Life reform is a once-in-a-generation reform that will enable up to 140,000 children and families in this state to benefit from free kinder this year, giving Victorian children the very best start in life.

The Best Start, Best Life reform includes free kinder programs for all three- and four-year-old children at participating services from the start of 2023. It also includes four-year-old kindergarten students transitioning to pre-prep over the next decade, becoming a universal 30-hour-a-week program of play-based learning available to every four-year-old child in Victoria over the next decade, and establishing 50 new government-owned and affordable early learning centres. These centres will be built in locations across Victoria that have the greatest need and will make it easier for families to access their childhood education and care.

This $270 million initiative means that children enrolled in three-year-old kinder will receive between 5 and 15 hours of funded learning each week, with children in four-year-old kindergarten receiving the maximum 15 hours per week. It is right that this program is called Best Start, Best Life. With 90 per cent of a child’s brain developing before the age of five, having access to quality education in that age group – for those three-year-olds, for those four-year-olds – has a profound and positive impact on how they and their brains develop.

This benefit will be available to every family because of the reforms that are already being implemented by this government, and that is fantastic. We are leading the nation with regard to early childhood education and three-year-old kinder reforms because we are committed to boosting the educational outcomes for all Victorian children.

Best Start, Best Life investment is also supporting nearly 8000 construction jobs across the state as we build these new kindergartens to accommodate our growing state and our commitment to delivering three-year-old kindergarten for every child in this state by the year 2029. All up, the Andrews Labor government’s investment has delivered a record $14 billion into our early childhood sector. We are delivering to our youngest Victorians and their families every best possible option to make sure that their early childhood development goes as best it can.

What the Best Start, Best Life program means is that the Andrews Labor government is making kindergarten free. The $270 million investment will save families up to $2500 a year per child. I am sure you will be very excited about that, Mr McGowan – $2500 a year per child.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: And Dr Bach even more so.

Nicholas McGowan: I would have been more excited four years ago, but I am still excited.

Michael GALEA: Unfortunately, Mr McGowan, I do not think it will be made retrospective.

Matthew Bach: Perfect timing.

Michael GALEA: Perfect timing for Dr Bach, so we can all absolutely appreciate that. This will cover up to 140,000 –

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I am glad we have that information. Thank you, Dr Bach. Up to 140,000 children will be going to kindergarten for free every year in this state. The benefits of free kindergarten for tens of thousands – more than 100,000 – children will be invaluable for the educational development of all children in this state. This also means that thousands of dollars in financial relief will apply to families at a time, as we know, when it is needed the most. This is a huge cost-of-living benefit.

To ensure that there is access to free kinder programs through early childhood education and other similar providers, I also note the government’s efforts in achieving more than 2750 services across the state that offer free kindergarten this year. It is a credit to the government’s important reforms that 97 per cent of all services in Victoria are offering free kindergarten already. The free kinder programs are being offered at both long day care centres and in sessional kindergartens.

Free kinder – what does that mean? It means families will not be out of pocket. It means not having to claim the savings back. It means not having to make a decision between sending your young child to kinder and giving them that educational support and having to put food on the table. That hurtful, painful decision will not apply to tens of thousands of Victorian families. Many families are struggling with rising cost-of-living pressures, but free kinder will make sure that no child misses out on early childhood education, no matter what, while saving families those thousands of dollars.

Another major change to early education that the Victorian government is bringing in is the transformational four-year-old kindergarten to pre-prep program. This change –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Michael GALEA: It is huge. It is absolutely huge, Mr Batchelor. This change will mean a universal 30-hour-a-week program of play-based learning being delivered through sessional kindergartens and long day care centres. Pre-prep will be another once-in-a-generation reform. This universal program will not only ensure that kids are given a quality education but will mean giving them the best start for their whole lives. It will be a high-quality program giving four-year-old children greater opportunities to socialise and to learn with their peers through play. Four-year-olds will have the great opportunities to develop the skill sets that will set them up for life, thanks to the transition to pre-prep.

Pre-prep will be rolled out from 2025, and it will start in regional Victoria. Pre-prep will start first in Ararat rural city, the Gannawarra shire, Hindmarsh shire, Murrindindi shire, Northern Grampians shire and Yarriambiack shire. More LGAs will see pre-prep rolled out each year to families in metropolitan Melbourne, and I will be very excited to see families in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region, which I look after, receive this program too. They will be able to access up to 20 hours of pre-prep from 2030, with all children having full access to the full 30 hours from 2032.

Nicholas McGowan: It’s a long way away.

Michael GALEA: It is important that we are doing the work. We are doing the work to make it happen. It does not happen overnight, and we are doing that work.

This government is rightfully giving early access to specific groups. Aboriginal and vulnerable children, regardless of where they live, will all be given access from 2026. Disadvantaged children – of those parents who hold a Commonwealth concession card – will have access from 2028. Having a transition to pre-prep with a staged rollout is an important measure to allow us to grow the workforce and deliver the necessary infrastructure for this life-changing program. This progressive rollout is similar to the staged rollout of three-year-old kinder. Both are monumental and transformative reforms that have been implemented by this Andrews Labor government. I commend the ongoing commitment to delivering nation-leading early childhood education reform by this state government.

The fact is that for many families, including migrant families and working families, child care has not been working for them. This reality has been felt in my region too, in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region. Fees are high and many have had to decide between the financial cost of what programs are available and staying home to care for their children rather than returning to work – the cost of not working and the cost, through childcare fees, of returning to work. Some communities further face a shortage of places – a drought of access to child care. To address this, the Andrews Labor government is establishing 50 government-owned affordable childcare centres in areas with the greatest unmet demand. I note that the centres will as much as possible be co-located with schools and in conjunction with hospitals, TAFEs and other major employers. This will help families with drop-off and pick-up, particularly working parents.

On the subject of co-location, how wonderful it was to hear Mr McIntosh, a member for Eastern Victoria, talking about the new facility opened this year, with $500,000 of funding from the Victorian government, in Mornington. You have a childcare centre right next door to an aged-care home. The most special part is there is a giant window between them. I am sure many of us in this chamber have seen the ABC TV series Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds.

Matthew Bach: Great series.

Michael GALEA: A great series, great idea, great concept. Congratulations to the owners of this centre in Mornington, who Mr McIntosh referred to – an absolutely fantastic way to do things. The sisters, Anna and Fiona Glumac, opened this centre with state government support, as I said, of half a million dollars. What a fantastic thing it is that elderly people and our youngest children get to play together, get to learn from each other, get to enjoy what they can learn and enrich themselves from each other. It is a truly, truly wonderful initiative.

Many of these things are happening as well. By 2028 all 50 government-owned early learning centres will be up and running. Those first four sites will be at Eaglehawk North, Moomba Park, Murtoa College and Sunshine Primary School, with 20 more locations soon to be selected, based on need. In conclusion, investment in early childhood education is an investment in our littlest learners and in our whole state.

Nicholas McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:53): It is with some pleasure that I rise to speak on this motion today. I have had the advantage of living not only in Victoria but also New South Wales, so it gives you that comparative difference.

Ryan Batchelor: We’re always better than they are.

Nicholas McGOWAN: We are always better than they are. I might be inclined to agree with that. Certainly in this space I think we are; I think that is absolutely the truth. I have always appreciated kindergarten full stop, but when you start to look across Australia you realise just how fortunate every Victorian is for the efforts of very many governments – in fact every government, frankly speaking – since the time of Federation, because in Victoria we have in all persuasions invested in kindergarten. In New South Wales there is a tendency and a predominance of child care. Here in Victoria we have a strong culture of investing in child care and in community-run and organised five-, four- and now three-year-old kindergarten.

Today’s motion and the debate in this house would be incomplete were it not for mention of my colleague but also the former minister in this space Wendy Lovell. Wendy Lovell was the minister from 2010 to 2014. I had the great pleasure throughout that period of having a number of dealings with the minister. Wendy was not only a tireless advocate for kindergarten and the other portfolios she held but she genuinely continued to push the envelope in terms of funding and to ensure that we were not simply doing that in a mindless fashion – that it was accompanied with a real quality framework, and Victoria yet again can be proud of what it has done in that regard.

In fact, as the minister, Wendy Lovell committed to and pushed for a national quality framework, and Victoria was very much central to this. It followed up on work by the Productivity Commission report, which made a number of recommendations about early childhood education. Throughout the period it is fair to say that Wendy, who was the minister, had to contest with at that point not only limited revenue opportunities but also a federal government that committed to funding 15-hour child care – and that was not too long ago – and through her work with her federal colleagues on both sides of the aisle she managed to actually pave a way to see that happen here in Victoria. Wendy and the former Liberal government also supported small rural kindergartens, making them more affordable and accessible for the families, and that was critical in small rural communities. It also helped of course to relive for many of those kinders the sometimes onerous but constant fundraising burden that is placed on those communities, and that is critical because it helps the parents of those children and the communities themselves. Wendy was also instrumental in making sure to provide within the budgets of those governments support to the leading organisations at the time who provided support with respect to both governance and service management.

I think it is interesting to look at some of the facts of that period, particularly in respect to the 15-hour programs. In 2014, 99.5 per cent of services in Victoria delivered a 15-hour kindergarten program. That was no small achievement. It was particularly amazing considering when Wendy Lovell came to be the minister the first time around she was told that the move to the 15-hour kindergarten simply could not happen until possibly 2016–20, and that depended on who the minister spoke with at the time. Of course Wendy was not content with that and as minister forged ahead to make sure that actually we delivered that well in advance of when they predicted we might have. But we have not done it without making sure that we also have progression in the quality of the services in Victoria. This is reflected in the assessments and the ratings that were undertaken at the time, with 78 per cent of services assessed during Wendy’s period to be meeting or exceeding the national quality framework standards compared to 62 per cent nationally. That is a figure that we can all take pride in, because what it means is that the level of support and the level of education our children are receiving at those tender ages, at those most important ages, were absolutely critical.

Again during the period 2011–12 and in the budget Wendy was instrumental in ensuring that $14.2 million over those four years both sustained and expanded kindergarten cluster management. That kind of management was critical to ensuring that not only were there appropriate startup grants but there was actually a transitional grant to provide additional resources when services had more complex issues. Wendy was also instrumental in making sure and assisting in the growth of the number of Aboriginal children – that is, for four-year-olds – who attended kinder. When she came to that position, we had in the order of 57 per cent of Aboriginal children attending four-year-old kinder. Working with the community, working with parents, working right across the sector, that figure went from 57 to 95. As previous minister, Wendy should be very proud of that. She is in the chamber now – so, Wendy, you know that figure better than most. You should take great pride in that work. It is a significant figure not because of the figure itself but because of what it actually meant to the lives of those children – young boys and girls – who I hope today are not only continuing their educational journey but doing so all the richer for your services and your dedication to this portfolio.

Ladies and gentlemen, I did, as Mr Davis has said in this place, have the opportunity recently to meet with Monash council. I did sit there and I was briefed with them, and while I welcome the investment the government is making in this space, and we too support that, I would caution and add that it is important that we ensure that when kindergartens are expanding the programs we properly and adequately fund them.

This is not a political point; it is simply a logistical and a financial point. I hope that those opposite but also on the crossbenches understand that and that every effort is made to ensure that the goodwill that is present here today and the intention for every child to receive the kind of early preschool education that we would hope for for them is achieved as stated.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:00): I move:

That debate on this motion be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.