All Australian Governments have committed to making early childhood an area for national reform. Through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), every State and Territory government and the Commonwealth have endorsed two National Partnership Agreements:

• An Indigenous Early Childhood National Partnership Agreement, established as the next step to achieve the COAG Closing the Gap targets for Indigenous children. The Agreement includes significant Commonwealth contributions:
• $292.6 million over 5 years to establish a minimum of 35 Children and Family Centres across Australia by June 2014;
• $107 million over 5 years starting in 2009-10 to increase access to antenatal care, pre-pregnancy and teenage sexual and reproductive health; and
• $90 million which, together with a combined state and territory contribution of $75 million, will provide increased access to, and use of, maternal and child health services by Indigenous families.
• A National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education, which provides for $970 million in Australian Government funding to ensure that by 2013 every child has access to a quality early childhood education program in the year before formal school (known as preschool or kindergarten). $955 million of this funding will go to State and Territory governments through bilateral agreements to support their implementation of the Universal Access commitment. In agreeing the NP ECE in November 2008, the Council of Australian Governments indicated its intention that funding after 2012-13 be provided through a National Agreement.

These major funding agreements are part of a wider early childhood reform agenda that COAG has initiated, including action to:

• address early childhood workforce issues
• establish a national Early Years Learning Framework
• create a national approach to quality and regulation of early childhood education and child care
• improve data and performance information in early childhood
• develop a national early childhood development strategy.

For more information on the reform agenda see the Policy Agenda section of the site.