{"id":34290,"date":"2025-08-14T19:42:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=34290"},"modified":"2025-08-14T19:42:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:42:33","slug":"greens-urge-the-government-to-put-early-learning-on-the-productivity-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/08\/14\/greens-urge-the-government-to-put-early-learning-on-the-productivity-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens urge the Government to put early learning on the productivity agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ahead of the Government\u2019s productivity roundtables, the Productivity Commission\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pc.gov.au\/inquiries\/current\/quality-care#interim\">interim report<\/a>&nbsp;on Delivering quality care more efficiently re-affirms that the Government must urgently deliver bold reform for the care sector, with the Greens arguing early childhood education and care should be firmly on the agenda.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The interim report proposes that the Government pursue greater alignment in quality and safety regulation across all care sectors.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, Australian Greens spokesperson for early childhood education and care, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, has written to the Treasurer urging that universal, affordable and high-quality early learning be a central item on the roundtable agenda to help achieve its stated goals of improving living standards, boosting productivity and strengthening economic resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expanding access to high-quality early learning would enable more women to participate in the workforce, support children\u2019s development and deliver substantial long-term economic returns. Yet the current privatised childcare system remains a major barrier, leaving too many children locked out of the quality education they need in their early years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Australian Greens spokesperson for early education and care, Senator Steph Hodgins-May:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEarly education is a vital part of the care sector and essential to lifting national productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA shift to a universal, low-cost, high-quality early learning system would be a game-changer for families, children and the economy. Research shows such a system could grow the economy by $168 billion and generate an additional $48 billion in government revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The childcare subsidy model and market-driven approach make early learning inaccessible and unaffordable for many families, and clearly fails to guarantee safety or quality.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis broken system is locking young parents, especially women, out of the workforce and stopping them from contributing their full skills to our economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf the Government is serious about boosting productivity, it must examine every part of the system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEarly learning is low-hanging fruit for real reform. Let\u2019s create a bold legacy of universal, high-quality early education that gives kids the best start in life and gives parents real choices to get back into work and study.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of the Government\u2019s productivity roundtables, the Productivity Commission\u2019s&nbsp;interim report&nbsp;on Delivering quality care more efficiently re-affirms that the Government must urgently deliver bold reform for the care sector, with the Greens arguing early childhood education and care should be firmly on the agenda.&nbsp; The interim report proposes that the Government pursue greater alignment in quality &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/08\/14\/greens-urge-the-government-to-put-early-learning-on-the-productivity-agenda\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greens urge the Government to put early learning on the productivity agenda&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34291,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290\/revisions\/34291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}