Childcare workers and childcare directors—or, as we like to think of them, early learning educators—have been asked to do a lot during this pandemic. They were asked to stay on the front line when we knew very little about COVID. Nearly everyone else had to stay at home, but they had to be able to care for the children of essential workers, showing just how essential they themselves are. They were initially denied vaccinations, and then they had them mandated, and I know both these things caused anxiety.

They were also hearing about the funding arrangements and the changes to their sector only when they were announced in media conferences, never with more than a couple of days notice to make massive changes to their working lives from who could attend child care to how much people would or wouldn't pay. Directors have called me in shock about the changes that were sprung on them over the last year and a half. These directors are predominantly women, and women who recognise the value and role of early learning, and to be treated so cavalierly by the Morrison government was frankly insulting. They deserve the support that they were given as a sector financially, and I think they deserved more, but they also deserved much more respect.

I also want to talk about the parents. It has been more than two decades since I had children in early learning—we called it child care then. From talking to parents now, I can see that the task of choosing the right people to care for and educate your little ones is no less agonising than it was in the 1990s. For the last nearly two years, parents have been asked to trust that their preschoolers were safe at their long day care centre, their family day care centre, kindy or preschool. There was a time when there were told that they were bad parents if they were working from home but still sending their child to be cared for at a centre. Seriously, have you ever tried to work from home with an under-5?

COVID has given the phrase 'juggling work and family responsibilities' a whole new definition. When my volunteers and I have done our community check-in calls, it's clear to me that parents, especially mothers, have had a massive load. There was confusion about whether they'd have to pay a gap or whether it would be waived. Parents were dependent on their centre being able to sign up for it, and the centres were given no support to do it. These were the most challenging of times financially and emotionally.

Now, as COVID seeps into places where we've largely managed to keep it out, I wonder at the government's failure to support the widespread use of rapid antigen self-testing inside childcare centres. You cause havoc to a family and a centre economically, logistically and emotionally when it closes due to a COVID case. There's a screening tool at hand that can reduce that impact, but it isn't being widely used. Kindergartens and long day care centres in Victoria will soon be in line with Victorian schools and have access to free rapid antigen testing kits to help manage outbreaks and limit disruption to children's learning. We need leadership at a national level from the Morrison government. I know that's a lot to ask and we've not seen a lot of it, but we need really good screening programs freely available to the directors and workers to help the parents and support the kids who are in early learning.

Of course, COVID gave parents a momentary taste of access to early learning for free. Even before COVID, though, on this side we knew the burden the cost of quality care was placing on families, especially when wages were stagnating yet childcare costs kept on rising—by around 20 per cent in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. Now parents of children, like me, look and think, '$100 or $105-plus a day for child care is a lot to pay out of your wage.'

The Morrison-Joyce government's policy sounds okay in an ad, but let's look at the detail because that's where it lets everybody down. It only provides some relief to one in four families. It completely leaves out parents with one child in care. That's 74 per cent of families. It rips the extra support away from families with two children in care once the older child goes to school, and it does nothing to put downward pressure on rapid fee growth. By contrast, our plan will bring the costs down and keep them down. Our plan will benefit 97 per cent of families and address the structural issues. Only Labor will fix this childcare system.