The Early Childhood Education and Care (Strengthening Regulation of Early Education) Bill 2025 amends the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999 to implement a number of measures aimed at improving quality and safety in the early childhood education and care sector. The Bill also implements other measures relating to regulatory powers and the administration of the Child Care Subsidy payment.

All levels of government are involved in the early childhood education and care sector. This paper sets out the purpose of the Bill, the background, government responsibilities, key issues and provisions.

In relation to quality and safety, the Bill will: 

• add specific quality and safety considerations to provider and service eligibility criteria for Child Care Subsidy approval
• allow the Secretary of the Department of Education to apply sanctions, including approval suspension or cancellation, when child care providers and services fail to meet quality and safety considerations.

Key points

• The Bill does not set quality and safety benchmarks or detail the thresholds at which sanctions will apply.
• Issues with state and territory regulation of the child care sector, such as delays in quality assessments, may affect the effectiveness of the proposed changes.
• The new quality and safety considerations could have been added to provider and service approval conditions without legislation.