A $300 million funding boost aimed at improving the wages of 30,000 childcare workers looks increasingly likely to be axed as the federal government continues to sit on the Labor-approved initiative.

The money was to be spent in 1100 childcare centres to bolster the meagre $19-an-hour wages of certificate III childcare workers by $3 an hour and early-childhood teachers by $6 an hour.

"We recognise the professionalism and dedication": Kate Ellis. Credit:AFR

The starting wage for a university-educated early childhood teacher is $42,000 a year.

Starting teachers who were to receive the wages boost would have been paid about $53,000 a year.