Bill Shorten’s $1.75bn preschool pitch for votes

Bill Shorten has guaranteed to subsidise 600 hours of preschool for 700,000 children and extend access to three-year-olds.

Lucas, 4, meets, from left, Dickson candidate Ali France, early childhood education spokeswoman Amanda Rishworth and Bill Shorten in Brisbane. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten has guaranteed to subsidise 600 hours of preschool for 700,000 children and extend access to three-year-olds in a $1.75 billion challenge to the Morrison government over universal funding for early education.

In what the Labor leader claims will be the most significant early education reform to date, the existing 15 hours a week of subsidised preschool for four-year-olds would be extended to three-year-olds under a Shorten government.

Mr Shorten will make the ­announcement in a landmark education policy speech today in Melbourne, claiming it as a cost-of-­living and economic productivity measure, as well as an education reform that will ­effectively lower the school age to three.

The speech will mark a deliberate move to steer the opposition away from the class-war rhetoric that has underpinned Mr Shorten’s leadership and begin the party’s pitch to aspirational ­middle-class Australia.

The Australian understands that the address today will be the first of five headland policy speeches the Opposition Leader is expected to make before Christmas, in a signal that he plans to move to an early campaign ­footing.

The move to start rolling out major policies nine months out from an expected election is believed to have been debated ­internally, with some senior Labor figures believing the opposition should stay out of the way of the government’s continued bloodletting following the ­August leadership spill.

However, there was an overwhelming view that Labor needed to remain visible with “big picture” policy announcements to counter any early political ­momentum the government might enjoy under Scott Morrison’s leadership.

The $1.75bn package will ­extend the four-year-old program across the current forward estimates to 2021-22.

The government is likely to seize on Labor’s high-tax economic agenda — which now totals $33bn in new taxes, including reversing parts of the government’s income tax plan and abolishing negative gearing — which will be used to pay, not only for the new policy, but a raft of unannounced opposition spending policies.

In today’s speech at Monash University, Mr Shorten will promise that under a Labor government, all four-year-olds and three-year-olds will be able to ­access 600 hours of preschool or kindergarten during the 40-week school year — 15 hours of subsidised access a week.

While four-year-olds are ­already guaranteed 15 hours a week, the opposition claims that the federal funding is locked in only until next year.

More significantly, Labor will, for the first time, pledge to expand preschool funding subsidies to three-year-olds, bringing Australia into line with other OECD countries.

Under Labor, two years of preschool and kindergarten will be funded as the “fourth pillar” of Australia’s education system, “taking their rightful place alongside schools, TAFE and univer­sity”, Mr Shorten said. “This is an economic and social reform as profound as lifting the school leaving age and opening up universal access to universities.

“This reform will see two years of early childhood education permanently embedded into our education system, in recognition of the importance of the early years of a child’s life.”

A heated debate has already erupted, with Mr Shorten yesterday accusing the government of leaving preschools unfunded ­beyond 2019. The claim prompted a swift response from Education Minister Dan Tehan, who accused Labor of perpetuating a lie.

“The government has guaranteed preschool funding,” Mr Tehan said. “The government will provide more than $440 million to states and territories in 2019 under the National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education.

“The extension of the National Partnership will ensure almost 350,000 children in Australia have access to 15 hours of quality early learning in the year before school.

“The government is working with the states and territories on future arrangements that will focus on lifting preschool participation rates, especially for dis­advantaged and indigenous children.”

Mr Shorten’s speech at ­Monash University is being pitched as Labor’s landmark education election policy.

The Opposition Leader will claim that early education would “help close the gaps created by disadvantage” and argue the importance of the first 1000 days to a child’s development.

“Under Labor, Australian children will have access to at least 15 years of continuous education — from the age of three to 18 years old,” Mr Shorten said.

“Our investment will help close the gaps created by disadvantage, it will help tackle the inequality faced by children born into low-­income households who are currently denied educational opportunities that their peers may have.

“This isn’t just an investment in the future of our children — it’s an investment in the future productivity of our nation.”

Mr Shorten said one of the “biggest barriers to accessing early education was finance — expanding access will help with the cost of living, help parents balance work and family, and help reduce the childcare bill for families with children already in early education”.

He claimed that Britain, New Zealand, France, Ireland and China had all expanded early childhood education programs to include three-year-olds, with Australia falling behind many OECD countries.