UWU Early Education Sector Reports
True reform only works when educators have a seat at the table. Their input ensures that policies are practical and genuinely child-centred. United Workers Union’s reports and submissions aim to ensure policy is grounded in real experiences. You can download any of our reports here.
Submission of UWU (2025)
Inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative
Educators are providing support to children with developmental delay, autism and other additional needs in services every day, but because of serious flaws in the ISP, many are doing it without the additional staffing resources, training or support they need.
Children with additional needs must be provided with the full support they need, which will also reduce the workload burden on educators in the sector.
UWU believes that comprehensive support for children with additional needs can best be provided through a public ECEC system, where the profit motive is removed.
Submission of UWU (2025)
Senate Education and Employment
References Committee Inquiry
The Australian Government has the opportunity to implement key policies that would be transformative for the sector, but there are also immediate steps that the Government should
be taking to improve child safety.
The long-term vision of the sector should be focused on safety and quality, and this would necessitate a shift away from the current profit-driven market of ECEC, towards a system that is child-focused and recognises the invaluable contribution our educators make to the
future of Australia.
UWU submission to ACECQA (2025)
On rapid assessment of supervision practices.
Educators welcome the rapid assessment into supervision practices, and we want to thank the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) and Minister Walsh for meeting with UWU educators on Monday 6th October 2025
ACECQA has the opportunity as part of its rapid assessment of supervision practices to reduce paperwork and documentation demands, limit excessive administrative duties and cleaning tasks on educators and thereby improve child safety and supervision in CBDC.
Gender Undervaluation (2025)
Position Paper of the United Workers Union
Traditionally, private ownership in the sector was characterised by family and small to medium-sized businesses.
Increasingly however, large financial interests are being lured to the sector by strong growth prospects underpinned
by generous government subsidies.
This leaves other taxpayers wondering why for-profit early learning providers exist at all, parents concerned for their children’s safety, and educators increasingly worried about their ability to deliver the highest quality early learning to children in their care. This report focuses a spotlight on these worrying trends
UWU Submission (2025)
to the inquiry into the Early Childhood Education and Care Sector in NSW
UWU members in ECEC welcome this inquiry into matters such as the safety of children, the working conditions of educators, the effectiveness of regulation and the regulator, the accessibility of qualifications, and the experiences of children with additional needs.
However, the initial steps to fix ECEC require strong actions by sector regulators, and by state and federal governments, to fully enforce the National Quality Framework (NQF) across the sector rather than be satisfied with band aid measures such as issuing ‘waivers’ to services which do not meet their staffing ratios.
National Report (2023)
Centres reveal crisis in Early Learning
In August 2023, UWU members launched a Crisis Tracker to map how the ongoing staffing crisis in the sector is affecting educators, families and children. Close to 1000 centres from across the country provided eye-opening and often shocking details about staff vacancies, workloads and pressures on staff, wait times for families and the lengths that services are being forced to go to in the face of the worst staffing crisis the sector has ever seen.
Nationally, the Crisis Tracker has shown clear and shocking trends across every State and Territory.
“Spitting off Cash” (2021)
Where does all the money go in Australia’s early learning sector?
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is big business. The sector turns over $14 billion annually across 16,000 centres providing long day care (LDC), preschool and out of school care.
This report shows that money which should be invested in children is being siphoned off to fund lavish lifestyles and
transferred out of the country. The losers in all this are Australian children, families and the educators working in forprofit services desperately trying to deliver quality care and education without the resources to do so.
“Unsafe and Non-compliant” (2021)
Profits above safety in Australia’s early learning sector
Traditionally, private ownership in the sector was characterised by family and small to medium-sized businesses.
Increasingly however, large financial interests are being lured to the sector by strong growth prospects underpinned
by generous government subsidies.
This leaves other taxpayers wondering why for-profit early learning providers exist at all, parents concerned for their children’s safety, and educators increasingly worried about their ability to deliver the highest quality early learning to children in their care. This report focuses a spotlight on these worrying trends