We are working towards policy change each day – whether it’s speaking with members, educators and service directors, attending forums and reference groups, meeting with Departments or lobbying decision-makers. Scroll down to learn more about our advocacy and how we’ve helped shape the sector by influencing policy change towards our vision of excellent early childhood education and outside school hours care for all.

Examples of our advocacy for early childhood and OSHC

Creating momentum for universal high quality early education and care

Every day, CCC represents the interests of community providers to governments at all levels. Our advocacy creates momentum to deliver solutions that support our five advocacy pillars to solve our members’ critical issues.

The past three years has been groundbreaking for the early education and care sector. With the breadth of major reform opportunities underway, we have created new and influential opportunities to raise our members’ voices and advocate for the changes that they urgently need. CCC has led the way, advocating for a sector that is ready for the future with universal access, professional wages and expanded community services.

To take full advantage of these opportunities, we have invested in our most ambitious advocacy campaign to date. We recognised state and federal governments’ appetite for major reform and knew that community providers had to have a seat at the table.

Bringing our Advocacy Road Map to life

During the 2022-2025 term of Federal Parliament, we focused on major reforms that would:

• Create a sustainable workforce
• Grow a stronger community sector
• Put children’s needs at the heart of the Federal Government’s plan for early education and care.

This is the key to delivering universal quality early education and care, no matter where they live. It’s the basis for growing sustainable and resilient services staffed by skilled and qualified educators.

CCC delivered this via five key advocacy streams:

• Solving workforce shortages through government funded professional wages to early educators and teachers
• Delivering affordable early education and care for all families regardless of where they live through major funding reform
• Setting all children up for lifelong success through sustainable funding to meet predicted needs
• Helping communities to grow new services that meet the particular needs of local children and families via a dedicated Federal Government fund
• Laying the foundations for the next phase of major reform to deliver universal high quality early education and care.

CCC made influential contributions to the major reform processes that would help the Federal Government chart the way forward to high quality universal early education and care system. This included creating opportunities to highlight the incredible contribution of community providers to children, families, and our economy. CCC made many influential contributions including creating opportunities for our member services to share their stories in Federal Parliament, highlighting the reforms that children and families urgently need.

2025 Federal Budget

The Treasurer delivered the Federal Budget on Tuesday 25 March 2025 and it showed that we’ve been heard.

The Federal Government locked in $5 billion for the foundations of a high quality early education and care system that is universal, sustainable and easy to access including:

• Funding professional pay to attract and retain qualified well supported early educators and teachers
• A $1 billion Building Early Education Fund to help communities to grow new services that meet the particular needs of local children and families
• A Three Day Guarantee for early childhood education and care, ensuring that the children who will benefit most can access early education and care.

What this means for our members

The Federal Government has listened to CCC, putting quality universal access, quality education and community managed services at the heart of Australia’s 21st century education and care system. Our intensive advocacy has grown decision makers’ understanding of the value of community early education providers, creating momentum for the reforms that are essential to grow our sector. The pace of this reform is remarkable in only three years,

The Federal Government prioritised the most urgent reforms which will unlock the potential of community providers including funding a 15% wage increase for long day care educators and teachers. This was a critical first step in solving longstanding workforce shortages and has created momentum for solving low wages in other parts of our sector.

We now have the foundations for the Federal Government’s plan for universal early childhood education and care. This recognises the central role that community providers will play in delivering this for Australian families.

What’s next?

The 2025 Federal Election has been called for 4 May 2025 and Parliament has been dissolved, but that doesn’t mean the advocacy work stops! CCC continues to lead this essential advocacy to achieve our vision of universal high quality early education and care on behalf of our members.

We have made so much real progress: both within Parliament and in the public’s understanding about the importance of high quality early education and care for children and families. The Federal Government’s investment in professional wages for early educators and teachers is already helping to attract and keep qualified staff in our sector. We also have a clear path to a universal high quality system that sets children up for success and works for families.

This is an unprecedented moment where families, the early education sector and governments are all ready for change. We can’t afford to lose this hard won progress. That’s why we’ll be highlighting the issues that the next Federal Government must prioritise during the election campaign.

A 15% pay rise for early childhood educators and teachers (2024)

For the first time ever, the Australian government will fund a pay rise for early childhood educators and teachers. This is a game changer for our workforce.

We’re proud to have led this process, along with Community Early Learning Australia (CELA), negotiating this historic deal on our members’ behalf through multi-employer bargaining.

We worked intensively to support our long day care members throughout the Fair Work Commission's process. We also raised the voices of small and community children’s services in Federal Parliament, sharing our members' stories with ministers, MPs and senators.

What does this historic deal mean?

• Educators and teachers will be paid 15% more – a wage that better reflects their qualifications, skills and responsibilities
• It will be much easier for long day care providers to attract and keep high-quality staff
• The workforce shortage will ease – meaning fewer children will miss out on the proven benefits of early education.

Funded professional learning for the early childhood education and care workforce (2024)

We were thrilled when the Australian Government announced $72.4 million in funding toward professional development in the early childhood education and care sector. We were the only voice in the sector calling for this investment, and we’re glad the government agreed that children deserve highly skilled educators and teachers who are equipped to support their learning and development.

Free Four-Year-Old Kinder/Pre-prep (2024)

For years we’ve highlighted that all children deserve to enjoy the proven benefits of education and care. The Victorian Labor Government is listening and plans to gradually transition Four-Year-Old Kindergarten into Pre-Prep, and double the funded hours from 15 to 30 a week from 2025.

Bringing education and care to the forefront in the federal election (2022)

In the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, we sent a strong message to the major parties about the need for education and care to be at the forefront of proposed policy. Working alongside Community Early Learning Australia (CELA) and Early Learning Association Australia (ELAA), our joint submission gained national media attention, and we put our members' concerns to politicians in a Pre-Election Forum.

A strong voice during the pandemic (2020–2022)

From the pages of The Age to the studios of the ABC, we thrust the struggles of our sector onto the national agenda. And with a seat secured at federal and state government discussions, we lobbied for additional financial payments for our sector, including Community Child Care Fund Special Circumstances Grants for COVID-hit OSHC services and cash flow boosts for struggling not-for-profits.

Port Phillip council retains education and care services (2020)

We delivered a strong message to the City of Port Phillip, which was debating whether to exit its council-run children’s services plus increase costs for community-run centres.

Two years are better than one (2019)

After years of lobbying, we were thrilled to see the newly re-elected Victorian Labor Government launch universal kindergarten for three-year-olds. The evidence shows that two years are better than one – children are better prepared for school, perform better and are more likely to attend tertiary education.

Our campaigning work 2018–2020

In 2018–2019 we continued to build relationships with key leaders, and decision-makers at all levels of the Department. We produced a joint submission for the Victorian 2018 election, calling on the parties to continue the Early Childhood Reform Plan, expand to fifteen hours of kindergarten for three-year-olds, develop a workforce strategy and more. We hosted a policy debate for the state election – a platform for the three major parties to present their education and care policies to one hundred members and educators in the local area.

We continued to ensure our members’ voices were heard by advocating for smart policy – like OSHC facilities built alongside new schools, and a detailed workforce strategy. We knew the devil is in the detail with policy, so we worked with the departments and the Victorian and Australian governments to ensure that policy would be rolled out with the needs of members, educators and children top of mind.

Our campaigning history

We have a long history of supporting and championing community-owned and not-for-profit education and care services in Victoria. Learn more about our history of advocacy for early childhood education and OSHC.