I thank the member for Moncrieff for putting this motion to the House because I relish any opportunity to speak on early childhood education and care. It is disappointing that those opposite, who in fact put this motion to the House, don't have enough speakers to speak on the topic. However, I'm happy to jump in early and speak on this very important issue.
I know how important this issue is to my electorate of Chisholm. I speak to my constituents about this issue all the time and I absolutely love visiting early education and care centres in my electorate. It was a real pleasure to bring the Prime Minister to Mount Waverley to visit the Goodstart centre there and to meet and play with the children and hear from the educators. I recently conducted a survey within my community of Chisholm around early child education and care, and I used the responses from that survey to make a submission on behalf of my community to the Productivity Commission. I've held forums and information centres with the Minister for Early Childhood Education, and I've been struck by the generosity of families in my community in sharing their experiences and acknowledging that the Albanese government recognises the transformative benefits of early childhood education and care for children and families.
We are working to build a universal early childhood education and care system that's accessible for all families, no matter their circumstances or background. Our government has already taken some critical first steps here, including to make early childhood education more affordable for over a million families through our Cheaper Child Care reforms. We've also commissioned the ACCC and, as I mentioned earlier, the Productivity Commission to each do a review, providing guidance on how we can achieve our vision of universal early learning. We know the first five years of a child's life are incredibly important for brain development, and that's why we're investing in their future and our nation's future.
Our government also recognises that early learning educators and teachers do an incredible job, a vital job, and we absolutely value our early educators. The work they do isn't babysitting; it's early childhood education. And they make it possible for millions of other Australians to do their jobs too. Every single day, educators help our children learn and grow, and their important work should be recognised for the value it brings Australian children and their families. I want to acknowledge their work and their love and care, and I want those educators to know that, yes, of course they deserve our thanks, and they also deserve their 15 per cent wage increase for the work that they do.
Just over the weekend, my team and I were out in my community of Chisholm, knocking on doors and speaking to residents about the issues that matter to them. My team and I spoke to a number of families who are better off under our government when it comes to affordable early childhood education and care. Our Cheaper Child Care policy is delivering cost-of-living relief for more than one million Australian families by cutting out-of-pocket costs. We've cut the cost of early learning by more than 17 per cent from when it was first introduced. What this means is that an Australian family on an income of $120,000 a year, paying the average quarterly fee for 30 hours of child care per week, is approximately $2,768 better off, and that's since September 2023. We know this is real and meaningful cost-of-living relief going back into the pockets of Australian families. We compare that to what we saw when those opposite last had the honour of being in government. What we saw was that childcare prices went up twice as much as the OECD average, by a whopping 49 per cent.
We're fixing this. We're making child care cheaper, and we're also working to build up the early education and care workforce, which was neglected under those opposite. Since coming to office, we have enabled over 1,000 new services, with nearly 30 per cent of those new services outside major cities. There are over 41,000 more educators, which means we're able to have more children in education services—almost 100,000 more children—with more than 90,000 additional places. I could speak for at least twice as long on our government's commitment and our reforms in this space, but I'm almost out of time. I commend our government's work to the House.
