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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-09-11 Daily Xml
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Early Childhood Educators' Day

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (12:28): I move:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges that Early Childhood Educators' Day took place on Wednesday 4 September 2024;

(b) recognises the critical importance of the early years of a child’s life;

(c) acknowledges the unique and significant role early educators play in supporting positive early childhood development; and

(d) commends the Malinauskas Labor government on the commitment to the introduction of universal three year old preschool.

Last Wednesday 4 September was Early Childhood Educators' Day. Early Childhood Educators' Day recognises and celebrates the work of Australia's educators in early learning services across long day care, family day care, preschools and occasional care. It is a chance to call out their wonderful contribution to the wellbeing and health development of young children in their care. To our early educators, thank you. Thank you for the work you do in guiding and educating all of our little ones in their early years and for the support you provide to families.

The early years of a child's life are critical, with more than 90 per cent of a child's brain development happening before the age of five. It is a short time to establish and form the foundation of all future learning and development and give our children the best start in life. With parents working more now than ever, they need quality early childhood education to support them, to give them peace of mind, knowing that their precious ones are being nurtured when they cannot be there themselves, and to assist our kids to grow up to be the best they can be.

The work that our early educators do, and the work of those who will take up the profession in the future, is vital. However, sometimes this work is often done without the recognition and reward it deserves. The role of the early educator needs to be acknowledged and celebrated for how important it is. Today, we are here to do just that and to thank them for their professionalism, skill and dedication.

I was pleased to see the commonwealth government improve pay for educators and our own government investing in attracting and retaining this critical workforce in the preschool programs. We have also begun work to deliver three-year-old preschool, which will begin in 2026, with the 2024-25 budget delivering funding to build the workforce and infrastructure needed as quickly as possible. We are working to support our early educators so they can support our kids, so they can continue to ignite children's curiosity, nurturing their sense of wonder and instilling in them a spirit of kindness and empathy.

Over the last week, I have taken the time to visit many of the ELCs and kindies in my community. I have not quite got to all of them yet as there are quite a few, but I will get there. I dropped in to give our educators a little chocolate treat and had many valuable conversations about their centres, their current capacity and their opportunities.

In the electorate of Waite, we have seven kindergartens and 12 early learning centres. That is a lot, and I would like to give them all a call-out and give them the recognition they deserve. So thanks to all of the educators who work at Coromandel, Hawthorndene, Belair, Blackwood, Mitcham, Eden Hills and Jessie Brown kindergartens; Blackwood Community Child Care Centre; Scotch College Early Learning Centre; St John's Grammar School Early Learning Centre; Concordia College Early Learning Centre; Nido Early School at Belair; Precious Cargo Montessori Early Learning at Blackwood; Beyond Early Learning at Blackwood; Guardian Childcare at Coromandel Valley; Montessori Kids at Bellevue Heights; and Goodstart at Belair, Blackwood and Clapham. That is a lot of kids, a lot of educators and a lot of love.

I want to just mention a couple of the fun and fantastic things I witnessed, some of the special ways our early childhood educators are contributing to the child's educational journey. The most amazing was at the Jean Bonython kindy. The educators at this kindy, especially Rikki Skrodal, are doing an incredible job of teaching the children about reconciliation, about being kind. They are teaching them Kaurna language in song and also speech. The children showed me just how clever they were by welcoming me, counting to five and then singing Open Shut Them in English and in Kaurna. It was absolutely fabulous and very impressive.

The Eden Hills kindy is also doing a fantastic job at teaching its students to be kind, sensitive and culturally aware, and they are also learning Kaurna language under the very clever guidance of Jen Lush and the director, Sarah Quihampton. I had a good chat to Sarah about the work that they are doing to share their stories of the past and the very significant Colebrook reserve just down the road. Jen has written many songs about Kaurna children, about respect and care for nature. She is a talented guitar player and she shares her love for music with the children.

I visited Blackwood kindy and spoke to their director, Maddy, and also met students Harvey and Charlotte, who are cousins. They sat me down, took my temperature and prescribed me some very delicious strawberry medicine for my sore head. One was a nurse and the other a doctor. It was very cute indeed. They even had clipboards to take notes of my symptoms. Hopefully, we will see them working in our health system in 20 or so years' time.

At Coromandel kindy, I was well informed by Ewan about all of the excellent sports we saw during the Olympics. The kindy had a pinboard with lots of pictures of different Olympians. He was happy to tell me that BMX racing was definitely the coolest. They even hosted their own kindy Olympics.

Previously, I visited Hawthorndene kindy, where students, under the guidance of their kindy director, Louise Montesi, welcomed my work experience student, Abbey, a former student of the kindy herself, and I in Auslan. When I dropped in this week, I was greeted at the gate by the kindy monitor, who let me know she was issuing the five-minute warning bell to go inside. Our educators are amazing. They are providing our kids with an incredible start and access to so many opportunities to learn.

Personally, I started my educational journey at Belair Jean Bonython Kindergarten and then swapped to St John's kindergarten way back in 1980. I do not remember too much, but I do remember our principal. Her name was Dorothy Pargeter OAM. I was saddened to hear this week that Mrs Pargeter had passed away on 1 September, so I would like to take this opportunity to speak a little bit about her as well.

Mrs Pargeter received her OAM for service to education, particularly in areas of curriculum development and student welfare. She established one of South Australia's first Montessori classes at her school and later introduced nursery school and kindergarten classes of which I was a student. She was also the principal of the junior school my brother attended, and she was well loved throughout our community. She was also a founding member of the Zonta Club of Adelaide Hills. She is being laid to rest this afternoon, and I extend my deepest sympathies to her family, her friends, the St John's and Zonta communities and to the many students she nurtured in her time as an educator. Vale Mrs Pargeter.

Early educators play such an important role in our lives, it is clear. Forty-five years after I met Dorothy as a principal I still remember her, and I know this is the same for most of us. It is this care and kindness that starts us on our journey, and it stays with us. To our early educators I hope that you know what a valuable role you play in everyone's life journey. You are there helping our children to learn through play, encouraging children to learn and grow together while building resilience in a social setting. You also stand as champions of inclusivity. By celebrating diversity, you help our children to understand and appreciate differences, fostering a sense of unity and respect that will stay with them for a lifetime.

The impact of your work goes far beyond the baby, toddler and kindy rooms. By shaping the early experience of our children you are helping to build a future generation that is compassionate, open-minded and equipped to face the challenges of tomorrow. It is you as our workforce who are out there on the ground every day making all of this a reality. Thank you for fostering an environment where our children can flourish. Thank you for being the bedrock of their early development. Thank you for your commitment to creating a better and more inclusive future. Your efforts are not just appreciated; they are celebrated. And we stand with you, committed to supporting and valuing the work that you do every single day. I hope you all had a fabulous Early Childhood Educators' Day and continue to do the amazing work you do for our children.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (12:36): I rise today to make a contribution on the motion brought to the house by the member for Waite, particularly around highlighting the fantastic work that our early childhood educators do right across South Australia.

While the opposition welcomes the vast majority of the motion that has been put to the house today, we will be moving an amendment to the motion. I foreshadow that, and certainly put forward the opposition's view that paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) are well supported by, I am sure, both sides of the house and the crossbench alike.

In many ways this is one of the most bipartisan areas of policy within the state. We all agree: while we may have slight differences in terms of the rollout of particular programs or otherwise, the principle that the early years are of critical importance for the development of our children is something that is shared without a shadow of a doubt. It is why under the former government—and I will speak in more detail to this—we spent so much time, energy and effort setting up South Australia's early learning strategy.

To return to the amendment, I move to amend the motion as follows:

Remove all words after '(d)' and insert:

(d) notes the pre-election promise of the Malinauskas Labor Party to offer three-year-old preschool to all children in South Australia from 2026, which has since been delayed until 2032;

(e) notes that under the government's model 70 per cent of families accessing three-year-old preschool will be required to pay long day-care fees, while 30 per cent of families will benefit from free public preschool; and

(f) noting that royal commissioner Julia Gillard has highlighted that the government will need a net extra 800 teachers and 1,000 other staff to fulfil this promise, urges the government to explain to the people of South Australia how they propose to achieve this.

In regard to those amendments, I think they speak for themselves. It is clear from the commitment documents and the policy documents that the Labor Party brought to the last election that there was a commitment around three-year-old preschool being available to all children in South Australia from 2026. They are the words that were included in the policy document that the Labor Party took to the last election. What we saw at every polling booth—just about; certainly ones that I was present at on election day—were posters saying that that delivery of universal preschool was going to happen.

Unfortunately, I think that this has been a case of selling a pup, in some ways, to a number of parents around South Australia who had an expectation that they would be receiving 15 hours of preschool per week for their three year old in the public setting by 2026. That is something that obviously is impactful for many families in many ways. We have outlined in this house before the importance of preschool, both from an educational perspective and a development perspective but also an economic perspective and what that means for getting parents back into the workplace.

The Gillard model that has been discussed—again, referenced in the amendments—essentially sets forward a pathway that will see 70 per cent of children receiving their dose of preschool in their normal long day-care setting. Again, I think that sits in contrast to the expectation of many South Australians when they saw red and were informed of the now Labor government's policy in regard to universal preschool. But, most importantly, I think there is a clear expectation from the sector more generally, but also those in policy setting positions, to understand how the government is proposing to recruit the significant number of workers that are going to be required to roll out this policy, even taking into consideration the model that has been proposed through the Gillard work.

If I return to the work of the words in the motion itself that the member for Waite has put forward, I certainly concur with her and recognise the significant work of the many early childhood educators across South Australia and particularly in the area that I represent. As a father myself of one child who has reasonably recently gone through early childhood education, I cannot speak highly enough of the experience that my family and my son had in that environment. I know that is replicated and that sentiment is shared by so many friends, family and otherwise across my local area and more broadly across South Australia. I think we can be very proud of the quality of the early childhood education that South Australia delivers.

The importance of the first five years of a child's life I think is again a shared bipartisan principle that is well recognised. As I referenced earlier, that is why the South Australian Early Learning Strategy was developed under the previous government. It was done because we all agree that giving our youngest the best start to life is important and that in the first five years we ensure that we help them develop the fundamental skills and abilities needed for school and life—the importance of ensuring that everybody is on track during that period of time.

It is why, during that work, with the Hon. Nicola Centofanti from the other place and the then minister, the member for Morialta and now shadow minister for education, I was very pleased to be involved in this process where, in particular, the work identified some key areas that needed to be developed and, in particular, the child development screening that is undertaken by CaFHS.

It was identified that far too many of our children, unfortunately, were not having these checks and that our coverage of those checks had been far too low. We were having a lack of identified development issues across South Australia, which led the state to be one of the very few since, I believe, 2009—I will find the exact figure, but the state was moving backwards in terms of the number of children who were meeting the development milestones identified, so that was concerning.

We undertook to develop a range of programs, one being the development of the Early Years app for parents, which works in tandem with what traditionally had been referred to as the Blue Book and which required an outline for parents—checks to understand the appropriate development of their children in the early years of their lives. That is an important part of continuing to improve the process of identifying development delays early in our children.

The Words Grow Minds public campaign was also successful in continuing to promote the focus on literacy that was undertaken under the previous government, both in early childhood education as well as in the early years of our school system. It is without any qualification one of the most important areas. Without literary skills, fundamentally it can have a significant impact on all the other realms and areas of development that children need. That need, and rightfully so, was at the forefront of what we were doing.

Another focus of the strategy was on the importance of playgroups around South Australia, particularly on the back of the COVID period, where so many playgroups were closed or put into a period of being not necessarily undertaken as they once were. Those interactions are just phenomenally important, both for childhood development but also for interaction of parents to be involved in those areas, understanding and sharing stories, not just in terms of their own experiences but the development of their children and sharing where they are at. While the opposition supports paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of this motion, we move amendments to part (d), with additional sections added.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (12:47): I want a quick word to thank the member for Waite for her motion and speak in support of all it deserves. Around the area of MacKillop we have a lot of primary schools, a young community and children who are on the waiting lists for childcare/early learning/resources around education. I want to say a quick word so that the member for Waite can sum up before we go to the break.

I am very supportive of the South Australian government in its support of children of the ages three and four being in the education system. I am very supportive and know that kindergartens/child care for this new cohort of children aged three and four have some sort of crossover and link. I want everyone to realise that we know the Treasurer and the budget had around $715 million to roll out to help pay for resources that will be needed for this early learning. Obviously, we want to make sure the resources are being spent where needed.

I am not saying that would not be the case, but I know that already in my schools, without the early learning, which has not arrived yet, we have bathrooms and facilities where an area school has a bathroom for years 12 down to reception. The fit there is not as good as you would expect in the city of Adelaide. I am making sure the education minister, the government, knows there are shortfalls in our education system.

There are two points on that: yes, there are resources that need fixing and there are old resources, buildings and infrastructure that are tired, but also there is an opportunity to say thank you to the government for early learning and what it does for education, outcomes for the greater good by year 12, setting people up for adulthood, going into life and hopefully the workforce and family life. That would change some of the intergenerational shortfalls that we have seen probably going back infinitum.

With this early learning that is being rolled out, backed up in the federal report by the previous Prime Minister Julia Gillard with her findings around early learning, there is a really good payback. I have seen some statistical data, and Australia and the United States are very similar in some of the outcomes. They may not be exactly the same, but it has been pointed out to me that for every dollar spent on a child between the ages of one and five regarding education outcomes you will get a $7 return; it is sevenfold, and that is statistically out there. It is avoiding education and learning shortfalls, it is avoiding drug addiction and substance abuse, it is avoiding anger and violence, it is trying to avoid incarceration rates, and it all stems from the first five years in life.

We are not DNA bred. We do not have genes that say that because Nick McBride has a gene he should be in jail. That is not how it works. You actually have to be brought up in a way that may lead to these sorts of outcomes. Your history is an indicator of where you will end up. It can even be intergenerational history, not in your own lifetime.

So I will sum up very quickly and say that we in MacKillop are looking forward to early learning. I back the member for Waite in her advocacy for what her government is doing. I think there are a great deal of good outcomes around education. Another thing I want to pick up on as well that I do not think is quite fully understood is that sometimes it is almost like saying, 'Yes, there are probably greater volumes, but it is not just low socio-economic families and individuals who will benefit from this.'

In the statistical data I saw, reading a book on early childhood and the damage that can be done between zero and five, of the most wealthiest families in America the top 1 per cent has the highest mental unwellness of children because their parents do not know how to love. They are not valued as children. Their parents know how to make money, but that does not mean they know how to love. The education system can play a role in joining those dots and giving value and worth and trust to these children from the earlier ages than it already does, and that is how you break the mould of what goes wrong in people's lives from then on.

Another bit of statistical information I can tell you is that we know that through life beyond five years we can send our people off to war and trauma, and we can have accidents and massive trauma in people's lives that can extend for many years, but none of that will beat the first five years of trauma. The first five years of trauma is the hardest trauma to undo. So, backing up what the government is doing here with early learning for three and four year olds being picked up for education purposes is part of that solution. It does not mean it is the only solution. The next part of that solution is how you back the parents up to be able to provide the education and love to those children.

It is one thing to get the children into these systems and education centres, but it does not mean the parents are any better the next day. That is the next nemesis of this process: to make sure the parents are well supported so they can support the children to learn so we break the mould and the intergenerational problems. I support the motion that has been brought to us. I know the opposition might have amendments. I do not care what they are, I just support the motion wholeheartedly in its intentions and I wish them all the best with this process.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (12:53): I thank the member for MacKillop for his contribution, it was excellent. We will not be supporting the amendment from the opposition and we put forward the motion as is.

Amendment negatived; motion carried.

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