I'm so proud and excited today to talk about Labor's Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022, formally in our budget handed down last night but one of the earliest parts of our platform that we announced in the previous term—in fact, in the now Prime Minister's first budget reply. And I was particularly excited to attend one of the events visiting a childcare centre in my electorate with the now Prime Minister and the then shadow minister for early childhood, the member for Kingston, at the Campbell Cottage in my electorate, which is run by the YWCA, with my little girl, Elena, when she was just three weeks old. It was her first press conference, and she handled it pretty well.

This is such an important bill. It's good for children, it's good for families and it's good for our economy. As a parent, I know—as all parents that use early childhood education and care know—just how critically important this is. We understand the benefit and the incredible work of early childhood educators. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about that as a parent but also as a local member, having visited many of the wonderful centres in my electorate and met with delegations of workers in that sector over the years. I want to talk about recognising the many layers of the work that they do.

They are educators. They are teaching the youngest children. We know that it is just so critically important that the first five years really set up children for their life, so that learning is critically important, and there's a real skill and expertise in doing that. Responding to the ever expanding curiosity of toddlers, babies and preschool-aged children with patience and finding ways to communicate with them is really something incredible. As parents, we all do a little bit of that, but our early childhood educators do that all day with a range of children.

Throughout the pandemic, when COVID first hit, our early childhood educators were some of the most affected frontline workers that just had to front up in those really uncertain times to keep our economy going and to keep caring for families. Under the previous government, there was a policy rollercoaster for those centres, where workers were worried for their own health, and centres were worried about whether they would need to lay off their workers and worried about the families that they support. I just want to again thank all the early childhood educators for what they did through that time for families and for Australians.

This bill makes it so more families can access early childhood education and care, and these great benefits for their families. This bill will benefit around 96 per cent of families, or 1.26 million Australian families, by making their child care more affordable. Anyone that uses child care knows it is very expensive, and those costs have been rising—in fact, 41 per cent over the last eight years is the national figure. I know that Canberra has some of the highest childcare fees in the country, and this is something I obviously hear a lot about from my constituents and know myself.

This bill will really make a change for families, enabling them to access more of that great education for their children and particularly enabling mothers to get back into the workforce or increase their hours of work. We've heard that too many people are stopped from working as much as they would like or from seeking work because of the costs of child care. In fact, according to the ABS, last year 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. We are robbing our economy of that potential; we are robbing those young children of that opportunity for early childhood education; and we're robbing those parents of the ability to get back into the workforce.

Another lesson about early childhood education and care that I often hear from the centres in my electorate is that it's about not only the great education and the opportunity that's provided for families to get back into work but the care for those children and the families. It goes without saying that you have to have a bottomless cup of patience to deal with pre-school-aged children. Don't start me! That care is also there for the families, and I've heard stories from early childhood educators in my community about families that they knew of during the pandemic, and in other times as well, who really needed the support but who hadn't been paying their fees, and they allowed some of those families to continue using child care. In one case, a centre told me that this was because they knew that the children were only getting regular meals when they were at child care, because this family was struggling so much. This was a not-for-profit provider, but it continued to offer that care.

Just recently, at another centre, I heard a story of a family where the mother had had to go overseas following the death of a relative, and they found they could help the father by providing meals for him as well, because he was really struggling during this family crisis that they were having. It's also about the key part in our community that these centres play.

So I want to acknowledge our early childhood educators and providers as part of this discussion, particularly as last week was Early Learning Matters Week. As part of that week, I went to visit the Guardian Centre, in Allara Street, right near my office—and thank you to Hayley, Peimin and the whole team there for showing me around and to the wonderful children that let me make some playdough and read a story with them. And, of course, I'm so indebted to the centre where my children go for the help and support and wonderful learning that you provide to my two children, which means so much to our family.

To focus on the economic side, an important part of our policy is that we're increasing subsidy rates for all families earning less than $530,000. This expands eligibility to almost universal standards for our community. It's about saying that early childhood education and care is not something different from school education; it is something that we know is critically important. Science has shown the importance of education for the youngest children and how that sets them up for life—so why do we see it differently from the access that we have to public education? This is a really important step in that direction towards a fully universal system which enables more families to access care.

We've heard, through our jobs summit and before that, just how important women's participation is to our economy. Too often, childcare costs are seen as coming out of the mother's wage, not the family wage, because they tend to be the lower earner. I'm also particularly proud that Labor have made closing the gender pay gap such an important part of our platform

This is an excellent bill. I'm incredibly proud. This will benefit many Canberra families. In fact, in the ACT, it will benefit around 23,200 families, including 8,900 in the electorate of Canberra, which I represent. This benefit is spread all around the country. There are thousands of families, in every electorate, who will benefit from this, but the number in my electorate is at the higher end. I'm really pleased that Canberra families can benefit from this, and I'm really pleased to support the bill today.