Senator Fatima Payman
Is government policy working?
The Federal Government should order an immediate review of its Early Childhood Educator retention payment and urgently audit its effectiveness.
Western Australia Senator Fatima Payman suspects reported drastic staffing problems are being caused by the government undervaluing the workforce, and possible rorting by profit-driven childcare companies.
"The elephant in the room when it comes to early childhood education and care is that we undervalue this relatively feminised industry, and underpay its extraordinarily hardworking staff," Senator Payman said.
"If we pay higher wages and benefits," Senator Payman said, "we could attract higher quality educators who are currently unwilling to undertake such a difficult and challenging job for close to the minimum wage."
"How do we expect to attract good quality educators if we are not paying them a decent living wage?"
Under its retention payment plan, the Federal Government increased early childhood educators' and carers' wages by 10% last December, with a planned 5% increase due in December this year. Sensible observers and unions say the increase should have been 25%.
Childcare centres also have to 'opt-in' to provide the increases.
"Given the current crisis, it is critical for us to urgently audit the government's cumbersome retention plan to see if it's actually working," Senator Payman said.
"We don't know if for-profit childcare providers are opting into the plan, and we don't know if those that do are actually passing that money on to the workforce."
"It's an inadequate payment that has the potential to be either ignored or stolen by employers," the Senator said.
"Let's make sure those taxpayer dollars are being spent the right way, and that this government plan is working and actually attracting new staff, because, anecdotally, it seems to be failing."
"And let's finally recognise the difficult nature and value of this work by increasing the wage rise to 25% in total."
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