2024-06-26
Early childhood education is too expensive for families and too hard to access. It’s holding children and families back.
Childcare is an essential public service, and for children, the early years are the most important in their development.
All children deserve access to quality early learning and care. It will remove barriers that limit choices for women, boost women’s capacity to engage in paid work and relieve financial pressure on families.
The Northern Territory Early Childhood Alliance has recognised the importance of the first five years of life with their "Thrive By Five" Action Plan. The NT Greens support this vision and look forward to advocating for the NT Early Childhood Alliance in the next Territory Parliament.
Greens Candidate for Fannie Bay, Suki Dorras-Walker, has said:
“This vision reframes early childhood education into a more holistic, childhood development model. This model acknowledges that for a child to thrive, we must ensure that all services, including maternal health, disability support, housing, and domestic violence services are all fully funded and coordinated to bring about the best outcomes for our children.”
“This report notes that First Nations children are more than twice as likely to be falling behind in their developmental milestones than other children when they start school. We are failing our First Nations communities and the NT Greens commit to changing this. We support First Nations designed, managed and delivered community controlled early years services.”
“The report’s proposal to establish a $10 million Early Childhood Workforce Fund is crucial to establish free and quality early childhood education. We do not value early childhood workers nearly as much as what we should for the crucial work that they do. The NT Greens support the development of the First Nations workforce, recruiting and retaining highly skilled professionals and appropriately remunerating our early childcare workers for the invaluable work that they do.”