I rise this afternoon to support the Child Care and Another Act Amendment Bill 2010. This piece of legislation is another step in meeting the Bligh government’s commitment to a quality and accountable education system in Queensland. It is about ensuring that parents have access to information that will enable them to make informed decisions about our most precious young Queenslanders. It is about ensuring that our teachers are fully equipped and tested to teach our kids every day. And it is about ensuring that our children get a flying start to education with quality checked early childhood teachers. This government prioritises the education of our children.

We have introduced a new year of schooling, we are building 240 new kindies and we have had the largest spend on school building works ever. As Parliamentary Secretary for Education, I am very pleased to be speaking about this bill and the many benefits it will have for Queensland parents and children alike. As a parent, I understand that choosing the appropriate care for your child is a very difficult decision. The bill before the House is designed to give parents another tool to assist them in making this really big decision.

The Bligh government has made a strong commitment to transparency and accountability in government. In this same vein, it is time that ECEC services are held accountable for the quality of their service. Queensland will be the first state in Australia to introduce a logbook of this kind. Once again we are leading the way. The Bligh government is at the cutting edge of compliance reform and we will pave the way for other states to complement the new national reforms in this area. At a national level, new standards for services are being introduced, and Queensland is taking this one step further so that parents can access important information about early childhood services.

Literacy, numeracy and science are the foundations of every child’s education. The Bligh government made a commitment to reform education in Queensland when it commissioned Professor Geoff Masters to review primary school education. We are keeping that commitment. Preregistration testing is a clear recommendation of the Masters report and will ensure that every teacher has a demonstrated ability to teach literacy, numeracy and science before they enter the classroom.

Our results in the recent NAPLAN tests show that we are improving, but we still have a long way to go. That is why we are introducing this bill today, that is why we have released a green paper which talks about moving year 7s to a specialised teaching environment and that is why we are introducing a suite of initiatives to improve outcomes in Queensland education. In addition, we have proposed a review of the quality of teacher training courses provided by Queensland universities. Queensland parents should expect quality teaching in our state schools and the Bligh government is going to deliver that quality.

Research shows that the early years of a child’s life are the most important. Queensland has been focusing on early childhood education and working with the federal government to deliver the biggest ever reforms to this sector. The amendments before the House today go to recognise early childhood teachers as qualified professionals to be registered. Registration acts as an additional check on teachers and it is important that teachers teaching a kindergarten program are able to be registered. This complements the commitment by the Queensland government to deliver universal access to kindergarten by 2014. Recognising ECEC teachers as registered is the first step, and we will look to mandate registration in the future so that every early childhood teacher is required to be registered.

This bill is an important plank in improving the quality of care for our youngest Queenslanders and in ensuring our teachers are fully equipped to educate a new generation of Queenslanders. As a parent, I urge everyone here to support the bill and, as a person and a member with a commitment to the future of our state, I commend the bill to the House.