The Parenthood welcomes national progress on Early Education and Care Commission

MEDIA STATEMENT

The Parenthood welcomes the Education Ministers’ agreement to explore the development of a national Early Education and Care Commission. This is an important step towards the safer, higher-quality and more accessible early learning system that Australian children and families urgently need.

At the Education Ministers Meeting on 15 July, ministers agreed that a potential Commission could strengthen safety and quality, help ensure services are located where families need them and provide analysis and insights to support workforce development.

The Parenthood CEO Georgie Dent said families had waited too long for a nationally coordinated system with clear accountability.

“For too long, responsibility for early education and care has been fragmented across governments, regulators and funding systems, with no single body accountable for whether the system is working for children and families,” Ms Dent said.

“A well-designed Commission can provide the national leadership, oversight and long-term planning needed to rebuild trust and ensure every child can access safe, high-quality early learning, regardless of where they live.”

The Parenthood believes the Commission should have five key functions:

1. Strengthen safety and accountability
   The Commission must help deliver and enforce consistent national safety standards, close gaps between jurisdictions and ensure regulators have the information, resources and authority to act quickly when services or individuals pose a risk to children.

2. Drive consistently high-quality care
   The Commission should strengthen the National Quality Framework and ensure quality is measured through children’s experiences and outcomes, not simply administrative compliance. A service that is not safe cannot be considered high quality.

3. Make early education and care affordable for families
   The Commission should provide independent advice on fees, funding and affordability, and help develop a system in which public investment delivers better care and lower out-of-pocket costs rather than being absorbed by rising prices.

4. Plan services where families need them
   The Commission must have meaningful national planning powers to address childcare deserts, oversupply and service gaps, particularly in rural, regional and remote communities and for children with disability or additional needs.

5. Give parents a permanent voice in the system
   Parents and carers must be structurally represented in the Commission’s design, governance and ongoing work, rather than consulted only after major decisions have already been made. Any standards and regulatory decisions should strengthen outcomes for children without placing unnecessary burdens on the families they are intended to support. 

“Families are the people who rely on this system every day, yet they have rarely had a genuine seat at the table when it is designed,” Ms Dent said.

“Parent representation must be built into the Commission from the beginning, alongside educators, experts, providers and governments.

“The next phase must move with urgency, but it must also get the design right. The Commission needs independence, authority and clear responsibility for outcomes across the entire system.

“We welcome the opportunity for targeted consultation and look forward to working with governments to ensure the Commission delivers a system that is consistently safe, reliably high quality, affordable and accessible for every family.”

The Parenthood also welcomed the additional national actions announced by Education Ministers to strengthen child safety, including further work on a National Early Childhood Worker Register, mandatory child safety training, supervision, staffing ratios, qualifications, transparency and provider accountability.

“These immediate safety reforms are essential, but they must sit within a broader system that prevents risks from falling through the cracks and gives families confidence that someone is accountable for the system as a whole,” Ms Dent said.

The Parenthood is Australia’s leading parent advocacy organisation, representing families nationwide and working to make early childhood education and care safer, more affordable and accessible for every child.