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Good morning, welcome, and thank you for joining us today to participate in what I hope will be the first of many creative, engaging and productive consultation sessions.

And the subject for discussion is of course the new National Quality Framework, which includes both the National Quality Standards Framework and the Early Years Learning Framework. Initiatives I believe are fundamental if we are to implement meaningful and long-lasting change in early childhood policy in Australia.

For many years, when people have talked about child care and early learning, the focus of public debate has been on accessibility and affordability.

But I think you’d agree it’s high time we talked about and debated quality.

Before I go any further, I'd like to acknowledge the close collaborative efforts of all jurisdictions in the planning and development of the consultation strategy. These partnerships have been instrumental in getting us to this point.

If you’ve been following the progress of the Rudd Government since its election in November last year, you’ll know that we have entered a new era in early childhood development in this country.

We have a Federal Government that has made children’s earliest years a priority, and has demonstrated that commitment by investing significantly to improve the status quo. And this momentum for change comes from the very top – we are led by a Prime Minister with a demonstrated interest in the early years and a fundamental appreciation of the value of a quality education.

The state and territory governments have thrown their support behind a Commonwealth/State/Territory partnership to develop and implement initiatives that will improve outcomes for children and their families. They too have invested new money in this area in their most recent budgets.

I believe the sector itself is, on the whole, supportive of change. Indeed many of you have told me that we could be doing a lot better for our infants and children.

And that is what we’ll be discussing today- how to create better opportunities and outcomes for Australian children.

We do have a bold agenda for the early years but it’s an agenda that is evidence-based and child-focussed.

We are looking to enhance development outcomes for infants and children across every early childhood setting through an integrated national quality framework.

And we have committed to doing so by December. It’s an ambitious goal and a tight timeframe, but all the evidence supports acting sooner rather than later.

We’re moving in this direction because the critical importance of a child’s early years is now universally recognised.

Whether it’s the work of James Heckman, Fraser Mustard, or OECD research, or our own Frank Oberklaid, Fiona Stanley or Alison Elliott, one message is clear.

High quality early childhood education and care programs have a positive effect on children’s ability to learn, and on their social development.

Good quality early childhood experiences ease the transition to formal schooling, and have a direct affect on educational, employment and health outcomes.

And we know that disadvantaged children have the most to gain from the benefits of early intervention programs delivered in early childhood education and care settings.

If we continue to ignore this evidence and do nothing, we do so at our own peril. The next generation will inevitably pay the cost of our inaction.

As someone reasonably new to this portfolio, I bring a fresh set of eyes – and sometimes that can be very helpful.

In the past eight months or so I’ve done a lot of reading about early childhood education and care. I’ve listened to and spoken with academics, professionals, practitioners, parents and their children, and I’ve heard a lot and learnt a lot about the system – both good and bad.

I completely reject the notion put forward by some that the care of children is in some kind of crisis. In 2006-07, there are around 1.1 million children in approved care in this country. More women than ever are having babies — recent analysis shows that Australia’s birthrate in 2007 topped 1.93 babies per woman, the highest rate since the 1980s. Many of these women are returning to paid work — over 50 per cent of mothers are in paid work by the time their child is 18 months old.

These statistics suggest to me that, in fact, parents of young children are confident in Australia’s formal child care system.

Importantly, I’m happy to report that most children are doing well. In fact, recently the Australian Institute for Family Studies released research that confirmed this. Children now are more sociable, less anxious and sleep better than their counterparts of 20 years ago!

These are all good indicators. But we can do a lot better.

However, it seems to me - and to many with whom I’ve spoken - that our current system has large gaps, and in its present form it’s not capable of meeting the needs of children and their families, and that operators can find it difficult and confusing.

Frankly this is not surprising.

This system has evolved in a sometimes haphazard, ad hoc manner over thirty or so years. And parents often find it fragmented, complex and confusing.

What is now recognised as world’s best practice demands we review the quality assurance and regulatory systems with a view to creating a new evidence-based framework.

Let me give you a brief outline of the current licensing and accreditation arrangements to illustrate some of the anomalies and shortfalls.

At present, the Commonwealth and the states have different functions and areas of responsibility, but they both regulate early learning and care services.

At the national level, the Commonwealth Government funds the National Childcare Accreditation Council (NCAC) to administer the Child Care Quality and Accreditation system.

This process seeks to regulate the quality of child care services. Its aim is to ensure that children have positive experiences and interactions.

There are different accreditation schemes for different types of services, and only services that are approved for the purpose of attracting the Child Care Benefit are subject to the accreditation process. It is mandatory for all government approved services to participate satisfactorily in the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System but it is also possible for services that are not approved to voluntarily participate in the system.

Meanwhile, the states and territories have responsibility for licensing and regulating child care services and preschools. Their areas of responsibility include ratios, staff qualifications, group size, the physical environment and health and safety requirements.

This rather convoluted system means there are overlaps in some areas, gaps in others, inconsistencies between the two and administrative inefficiencies.

Here are some examples.

Staff-to-child ratios for the 0 -2s is 1:4 in some states and 1:5 in others. In older age groups, variations between the states are even greater. In NSW, the staff-to-child ratio for 2-3 year olds is 1:8. In Victoria it’s 1:5, and in South Australia it’s 1:10.

When it comes to qualifications, there is no nationally consistent minimum qualification for early child care workers, some states like Queensland have mandatory entry-level qualification requirements ….In that state child care workers must have a Certificate III before they can be employed in a child care centre.

NSW is the only state where there’s a requirement for centres with more than 29 places to employ a trained teacher, but since 2002 has allowed services to temporarily fill teaching positions with Diploma qualified workers. By 2003, 8% of all licensed services - and more than a quarter in some regional areas - were operating under this exemption.

Only seven per cent of early childhood workers in long day care centres across the country hold a bachelor degree or higher qualification in early childhood, and 39% of the early childhood workforce in long day care centres had no formal child care qualifications at all.

This is occurring even though the evidence tells us that a well-qualified workforce is critical to quality outcomes. However, in the absence of a consistent national framework, children across Australia are having different quality experiences depending in part on their particular state’s licensing requirements.

This variability is unfair on children, unfair on service providers and fails to deliver what children and their families deserve - a consistent standard of high-quality care and learning, regardless of setting or location.

And if you look at the quality accreditation process, there are real gaps that can allow children to be in non-compliant and unaccredited centres for considerable periods of time.

For example, on average it takes a new service two years to gain accreditation from the time it first opens its doors for business. If it fails accreditation the first time around, it could be another year before it is accredited. That’s three years from the time it commenced operating to the time it gains accreditation.

Once accredited, a service may be found to be non-compliant if it doesn’t submit a self-study report or fails to participate in validation visits or spot checks.

If that happens, the NCAC will provide guidance and assistance, and the service is also offered support from a Professional Support Program co-ordinator in the relevant state, but by this time it has probably been operating for at least two years, possibly longer, before the support system begins to respond.

What happens if the non-compliance is repeated, or continues? Historically, it seems that virtually nothing meaningful could be done by way of sanction, except to remove Child Care Benefit approval, and that ultimately affects families. It is only within the last 12 months that the government can impose additional conditions of approval on a service such as working with a professional support organisation and submitting action plans and undertaking additional inspections.

There is another significant oversight in the design of the current system - parents are not informed when quality systems identify problems with a service. Under the accreditation system, parents may not know of problems until they receive a letter advising them that the service’s CCB approval may be withdrawn and they will no longer be entitled to claim CCB or CCTR as a result.

Very recently, the New South Wales Government has adopted a new approach of naming and shaming. From September it will publish information about failing services on a website.

In the meantime, we have children attending centres that have not met basic quality accreditation requirements.

It’s obvious that a streamlined or integrated approach to licensing and accreditation would improve the effectiveness of quality regulation and compliance, and alleviate inefficiencies and overlaps.

At present we have a system of licensing and accreditation that doesn’t seem to demand or foster quality improvement in early childhood services on an ongoing basis.

For years, the previous government was a passive investor in the child care market. It handed money to parents and centres, but to little effect - it seems our current system still accommodates some poor quality providers.

This Government is not satisfied with that approach, nor are the states and territories.

The Commonwealth is repositioning itself as an active participant in this sector. This financial year we will spend around $3.2 billion on child care services, subsidies and initiatives, and on behalf of taxpayers and parent, we want to see value for money. We are raising the bar and we want to ensure that our investment will benefit those who use the system day in and day out.

Before we start to feel overwhelmed by the task ahead, let me say that I believe this is a time of great opportunity. The chance to redesign a flawed system doesn’t present itself often - so we should grab this one with both hands.

And we should be encouraged by the fact that, despite some of my earlier observations, it’s not all bad news - we’re definitely not starting with a blank slate.

There are dedicated and committed people working in the sector running centres that are sterling examples of what we should be aiming for across the board. They’re out there and they’re doing it. We just need more of it.

Let me tell you a bit about some of them.

On one of my first interstate visits this year I visited Café Enfield. CAFÉ Enfield sits within one of the poorest postcodes in Australia. Its population is characterised by above average inter-generational unemployment, teenage pregnancies, early school leaving rates, and physical and mental disabilities.

But the Enfield model aims to address this extreme social disadvantage.

Café Enfield brings together health and education experts. They run parenting classes, help very young mothers finish high school and, most important of all, they bring together care and quality learning opportunities for young children in a safe, stable and nurturing environment, often so very different from the one they experience at home.

Without the sort of intervention provided by centres like Café Enfield, we’ll lose these children, and the sad stories will be re-told in one report after another about dysfunction in families and communities.

Let’s consider another postcode, a far more affluent one, and another model of outstanding leadership.

In my own electorate in northern Sydney, the Somerville Park integrated family centre has been designed by Hornsby Council.

This is a very smart outfit, with the providers starting out by saying…what is it the stressed hard working families in this area need?

What they’ve come up with is this. A long day care model with a quality preschool programme provided within those hours. There are one on one programmes for children with special needs. When I was there recently teachers were working with children with autism and Down Syndrome. And those children were also playing and learning with the others. A speech therapist provides her services several times a week.

But I think the genius of Somerville Park is that they understand that it’s all the other stuff that stresses parents out…organizing nutritious meals and keeping children appropriately groomed.

So Somerville Park organizes kids’ haircuts on site and they also run a great commercial kitchen, so that for a reasonable price, when Dad picks up young Delia at 5.30 he can also pick up a decent osso bucco for the whole family.

As I say, this is a smart council that is turning service delivery on its head. Instead of saying this is the standard child care model and parents should fit into it, they are doing the reverse. Creating and constantly looking for ways to adapt child care to suit the community’s needs.

And in Canberra, there’s the wonderful Jenny Wren Childcare and Early Learning Centre where the mums speak with reverence about the "Effie" factor.

Effie is the Centre's Diploma-trained Deputy Director and is the daily welcoming presence for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. Along with owner-director Amanda Morphett, this small private centre is in many ways what the Government is aiming for when it comes to quality early education for pre-primary children.

They have higher staff/child ratios than stipulated under licensing

requirements, there is on-going encouragement of professional development, and, importantly, fees are competitive.

I’m sure you’ve heard it over and over, but I’ll say it again - children learn more in the early years than at any other comparable period of their lives.

That’s why the work of early learning teachers like Effie and Amanda needs to be recognized and celebrated.

Their approach is based on the early childhood philosophy of Reggio Emilia, as are many other quality centres around the country. In a light-filled beautifully designed setting, teachers and carers encourage children’s natural intelligence and exploration of their widening world.

Over in the music room, one of the boys is telling his teacher that ballet music is "girl's stuff". He gets to listen to a bit of rock next time.

In another room, colourful masks are being made. In yet another, the discussion is why snakes are the way they are.

Sounds basic enough to adults, but when a Centre gets it right, children are the winners.

As one much-travelled professional parent told me, "My boy is happier and much more self-reliant since he's been here."

These centres have several things in common. They all have great leaders who understand the value of early childhood development and the value of ongoing professional training.

What’s more, they all demonstrate that it is possible to provide high quality and affordable programs for children through integrated models of service delivery.

Indeed that’s our ambition for every centre under the new framework.

Centres that respond to the needs of their communities and deliver quality programs and experiences that meet the needs of every child in their care.

Of course the big question is, how do we get there? What will a set of national standards look like?

This is where your work begins. Your expertise, your ideas and your input will be incredibly valuable in the development process.

Again, we’re not starting from scratch. As you’ll see in the discussion paper, we know the framework will have three key elements:

• rigorous quality standards for early childhood education and care;
• a ratings system; and
• streamlined or integrated licensing and accreditation arrangements.

In addition, the quality standards will be supported by the Early Years Learning Framework.

Australia is currently (one of few OECD member nations) without a national early childhood curriculum. We need a framework which benefits all children who spend time in an early learning and care environment, regardless of the setting.

It will guide early childhood educators as they develop early childhood programs.

In addition, the Early Years Learning Framework will provide a common language and approach that assists families, and the broader community, increase their knowledge about young children’s learning and development.

So, when we’ve agreed on the details of the key elements we need to be able to describe the National Quality Framework system simply. It needs to be ambitious, comprehensive and easy to understand and work with – for operators and parents alike.

And we know we want the Quality Framework to deliver:

• more transparency and accountability around public spending in the sector;
• improved information for parents about services and the quality of care and learning they provide;
• a reduced administrative burden for operators and increased certainty about regulatory requirements; and
• continuous improvement in the quality of services, including ongoing professional development for early childhood carers and educators.

This consultation process is critical in determining how the standards will operate. I certainly don’t have all the answers for you today, but I would like to share some suggestions to help prompt your own thinking about what we need if we are serious about improving quality.

There is no dispute among the experts about what drives quality.

They all tell us the same thing. The nature of the social interactions between a child and its carer is the key driver of quality early childhood development.

Of course the best interaction is likely to be between a child and its parents. However, in the modern economy many parents work.

This means we need to give parents choice, and providers need to replicate, as much as possible, the quality of the relationship between a child and its mother.

While outcomes from this type of social interaction are hard to measure, the factors that combine to create the optimum environment for these interactions to occur are not.

High staff-to-child ratios, a well qualified workforce, and manageable group size are seen as the iron triangle of quality service delivery.

There is growing recognition of the critical role of highly qualified professionals in the early childhood education and care sector. I’d like to share with you a description of that role that was recently provided to me. An early childhood professional is:

"-- neither baby sitter nor trainer – but rather – a loving facilitator of emotional, cognitive, language, physical, and social competence."

In 2006 The Australia Institute released a paper by Emma Rush, "Child Care Quality in Australia". You may be familiar with it.

Rush conducted a national survey of long day care staff which asked them about key aspects of quality care.

According to Rush, high staff-to-child ratios "are at the core of the ability to provide quality care".

Child care workers in long day care centres were telling us of their concerns about ratios and qualifications at least two years ago.

Our long term goal should be to ensure that staff/child ratios are evidence-based, reflect internationally accepted best practice, and support a high quality early childhood education and care experience.

There must also be alignment on qualifications. It goes without saying that enhanced professional qualifications are critical to the success of the new framework.

I know there’s some concern in the sector about our emphasis on four-year trained teachers. However we believe four-year trained teachers are a prerequisite to achieving our policy goals.

Not because they have a qualification per se, but because international studies have found that it is not the qualification itself that affects outcomes, but the staff member’s ability to create a better pedagogic environment that makes the difference. So we’re looking for people - indeed - we’re trying to encourage the training of educators, who will be leaders in learning and development.

And for those without four-year qualifications but with a passion for children and their welfare, we will work with their employers, with training institutions and with them, to ensure they have every opportunity to further their professional development and improve their skills if that is what they choose.

We know that we will not achieve our ambitions in this area unless we dramatically increase the professional standing and qualifications of those who work with young children – whatever their position or role in the workplace.

In conjunction with the national quality standards, we are developing a quality ratings system - as an indicator of service quality; to drive continuous improvement in quality; and to provide better, more transparent information to parents about the quality of service they choose for their child.

We envisage that the ratings system, together with the national standards, will enable the sector to evaluate practice, improve quality performance and implement models of accountability that stand up to public and professional scrutiny.

Designing a ratings system is a complex matter and the issues to be considered in that process are set out in the discussion paper.

As you know, the Commonwealth Government has talked about an A-E ratings system, but it may be that the public consultations show that something else is preferred.

For example, it’s been suggested that a three-tiered ratings system might achieve the outcomes we’re looking for.

Such a system could have ratings for "Provisional"; "Standard" and "Centres of Excellence".

Any new operator would immediately be placed in the provisional category for a prescribed period – say, two years. In accordance with the new quality standards and regulatory arrangements, these centres would need to demonstrate satisfactory progress in a number of areas before moving up into the next ratings category. These areas might include a commitment to children’s development, an ability to hire and retain qualified staff, and an understanding of good governance and business practices.

And it would be during this initial period of operation that the service would access professional support and assistance – perhaps on a mandatory basis - to ensure a thorough understanding of regulatory and administrative procedures.

The middle category in this system is "Standard", and I expect this is where most services would sit.

These services would meet all the quality criteria including improved ratios, staff qualifications and support for professional development. In your discussions today, you may think that the rating system should also provide for a "High Standard".

And the top category in this system would be "Centres of Excellence", of which there would probably be few. These would be Lighthouse centres, considered leaders in the field. These centres would demonstrate a capacity for innovative and creative programs. For example, partnering with other providers, specialising in a particular area of care such as infants or special needs children, or running workforce mentoring programs.

Whatever model of ratings system we implement, what really matters is that it delivers continuous quality improvement and provides comprehensive and reliable information to parents.

Changes to quality standards and the implementation of a ratings system will necessitate streamlining or integrating the current licensing and accreditation processes into one, to provide and oversee national consistency.

Although we don’t know the form it will take, we anticipate that the most effective way to drive quality without imposing red tape and additional costs on providers would be to have a national administering agency.

When you are discussing the characteristics of the new regulatory system today and in preparing your written submissions, I encourage you also to consider the following two questions:

Is there a need for the new agency to be a strong and effective advocate for the sector and participate in the public debate on quality?

What arrangements for professional support services – voluntary or mandatory – would support the delivery of good quality services from the time a new centre commences operating?

Once we have decided on the right regulatory model, appropriate governance mechanisms will need to be developed, as well as transitional arrangements to cover the shift to the new system.

We know that these changes are significant, that they will take time, and that they will cost money - because there is a cost associated with providing high quality care and learning programs for infants and children.

As I mentioned earlier, the Commonwealth has already demonstrated its intention to provide additional funds to support these initiatives, and state and territory governments have indicated their in-principle of support for them.

The Commonwealth funding includes $126.6 million for a National Early Years Workforce Strategy. This funding will be used to:

• remove TAFE fees for child care diplomas and advanced diplomas from 2009;
• create additional university places for early childhood teachers, beginning with 500 extra places in 2009; and
• reduce the HECS-HELP debt of early childhood teachers who work in regional and remote areas, Indigenous communities and areas of high disadvantage.

The Commonwealth Government is also committing significant funding to support universal early childhood education.

Specifically, we are committing $533.5 million in the next five years to support the commitment to deliver a high quality, play-based, learning and development program. This program will be delivered for 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, by a degree qualified early childhood teacher in the year before school. This will be followed by $450 million in recurrent funding to support the ongoing delivery of this early years learning.

We know that these are big challenges for the industry. But the moment is now! If we miss this opportunity, it may be another decade before we have a chance to revisit it. Equally, we know that to achieve major change requires a carefully considered and realistic transition timetable and your views will be important in determining what the transition period will be.

Without doubt, change is coming.

This morning you’ve given me the chance to explain why I think change is necessary and to share some ideas with you. Over the coming weeks I look forward to hearing your views and suggestions.

I assure you, they’ll be given serious consideration by those of us working to develop and implement these policy initiatives.

Caring for, teaching and nurturing children is serious work, and I believe that collectively we must do all we can to guarantee the present and future wellbeing of our children.

As I mentioned earlier, there are around 1.1 million children in approved care in this country. That’s a lot of lives and a lot of responsibility. For their sake, and for the sake of those who will follow them, it’s critical that we get this right, and that we do it now while we have the opportunity.

Thank you for your attention this morning, and thank you for your participation here today.

Ends