The Council of Australian Government Reforms [2007–2013]: a critical juncture in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy?

Between 2007 and 2013, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) introduced major national policy reforms to improve quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) (Brennan and Adamson, 2014). By analysing policy documents underpinning the COAG reforms for early childhood, this article contends these reforms have been so far-reaching that, conceivably, they could have a lasting impact on systems and structures designed to improve quality in ECEC and fundamentally alter the trajectory of future policies. To this extent, they could eventually prove to constitute a critical juncture (Hogan and Doyle 2009; Pierson, Politics in time: history, institutions, and social analysis, 2004) in Australian ECEC policy history. In this article, we speculate about whether history will position the COAG reforms as a critical juncture in policy or see them weakened by policy moves that erode provision of quality in ECEC. We argue that studying the potentiality of critical junctures in ECEC policy illuminates the complexity of policy production and provides insights into the nature of future policies.