‘Just wow': Anytime Fitness slammed over ad
The video, posted by Marrickville Anytime Fitness, showed a worker hiding behind the gym before leaping out at a passerby.
The worker then pretends to 'knock out' the passerby with chloroform before dragging them into the venue and making them sign a membership contract while unconscious.
'When our boss tells us to sign up more members,' the video was captioned.
The video was posted to the Marrickville Community group and quickly received dozens of negative comments.
'FYI drugging and kidnapping women is not a cute and acceptable marketing strategy,' one wrote.
Another wrote: 'Seriously? Who thought a video showing a member of your team kidnapping someone off the street, doping them so they lose consciousness and then forging their signature for a monthly membership would be a good marketing idea.'
The video remained up with the negative comments deleted before it was eventually taken down.
'Just wow. I am so speechless about how tone deaf the original post was but then how you've doubled down by refusing to remove it and deleting negative comments,' one commenter wrote.
Anytime Fitness did not respond to multiple requests for comment by news.com.au.
The faux pas comes just days after a popular teeth-whitening brand was forced to issue an apology for its latest advertising campaign.
White Glo's new ad, emblazoned with the phrase 'Make the white choice', has been spotted on Melbourne trams and Sydney buses in recent days, quickly sparking a wave of backlash online.
In a statement, White Glo said that while the ads were 'purely about teeth whitening, with no other intended meaning' they would be working to remove the ads due to the offence caused.
'Our ads feature the tagline 'Make the White Choice' which is intended to be a wordplay on 'Make the Right Choice', to highlight the effectiveness and reliability of our products, versus some less effective products we are seeing emerge in the market,' a statement read.
'Whilst this campaign was accepted by Australia's Advertising Regulator in April, the response in the last couple of days has indicated that we have missed the mark.'
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ABC News
19 minutes ago
- ABC News
Why there's no ‘silver bullet' to make childcare safe
Sydney Pead: Parents send their young children to childcare, trusting they'll return home each day safely. But thousands of families are in shock after a Victorian childcare worker was charged with 70 offences, including sexual assault and producing child abuse material. The alleged victims were as young as five months old. Today, Caroline Croser-Barlow from The Front Project, which works to improve early childhood education on whether the system is safe and how governments can fix it. I'm Sydney Pead, on Gadigal land in Sydney, this is ABC News Daily. Sydney Pead: Caroline, in Victoria, a man has been charged with sexual assault offences against eight children who were under his care at a facility in Melbourne's South West. News report: Police have charged 26-year-old man Joshua Brown with more than 70 offences. The charges relate to eight victims in Melbourne's West between April 2022 and January 2023. Janet Stevenson, Victoria Police Acting Commander: As soon as we identified his alleged offending, he was removed from the community. He had a valid Working With Children check, which has since been cancelled. News report: In the past eight years, Brown worked at 20 other childcare centres around Melbourne. Health authorities are urging 1,200 children to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Dr Christian McGrath, Victorian Chief Health Officer: We do understand that this is another distressing element to the situation and we're taking this approach as a precaution. Sydney Pead: They're just shocking allegations. What was your reaction? Caroline Croser-Barlow: I think I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Many of us have left our children in early childhood settings and I just feel enormously for the families involved, for the families who don't know if they're involved, that uncertainty is really hard. For the educators who are working at that service, I can't imagine the level of guilt and horror you must feel. And to educators more generally who I know are waking up today and just feeling really, really, really sad about this terrible thing that has happened. Sydney Pead: And Victorian health authorities, they're recommending that 1,200 children linked to the case be tested for infectious diseases. The impact of these allegations, it's just huge, isn't it? Caroline Croser-Barlow: It really is. And I think it's obviously really important and really good that the government is being so forthcoming and kind of identifying and contacting families to let them know that there's a chance that their child might have been exposed. The balance of that obviously is that it creates a lot of anxiety and concern amongst families and there's just no good way forward in this. It's just a really difficult situation. Sydney Pead: Well, the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, has spoken about this. She said the allegations were sickening. Jacinta Allan, Victorian Premier: As we know, every Victorian was just so completely horrified by those sickening allegations that were made public. And I know right across the state, so many Victorians, so many parents turned to each other and asked that question, like we all did. How could this sort of offending be possible within a child care centre? Sydney Pead: She's now ordered an urgent review into child care safety, a ban on personal devices in centres to come in later this year. Jacinta Allan, Victorian Premier: To avoid delay, we'll be putting all Victorian child care centres on notice that they will be required to adopt this ban on personal devices effective from the 26th of September. Sydney Pead: And the state will now strengthen its rules around the Working with Children check. Now we understand this man had a valid Working with Children check. Can you just explain how that system works? Because parents might think that that's a pretty good guide that their children would be safe with someone who has that accreditation. Caroline Croser-Barlow: Look, a Working with Children check is a background check conducted by the government that screens for criminal history and professional conduct findings. And so it is obviously a really important step, but it is only backwards looking. So it can only catch people after they've been caught the first time. And so a Working with Children check is important, but definitely not a silver bullet. Sydney Pead: So the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, said that the Federal Government will ban the use of personal mobile phones within centres after the arrest and the conviction of a paedophile in Queensland. And that's because of concerns raised by the National Safety Regulator about the creation of child abuse material. Is the government taking this seriously enough? Caroline Croser-Barlow: Absolutely, the government is taking this seriously, I think. So I've been around the sector a little while, and what I'm hearing in the background is that there is more movement among ministers and among public servants than there has ever been before. But I understand from the community's perspective that they're sort of saying, well, why can't government stop this? Like we are always hearing these kind of new announcements. The ban on mobile phones has been something that's been discussed a little over the last six months. The New South Wales government has announced that it's going to do a pilot of CCTV and high risk services. And I really understand that the community is like, there's all these individual measures. Why isn't it working or what will work? And so I guess when I look at it, I think we need to be careful to not think there is a single thing that will fix all of these problems. To use a kind of health analogy, I'd say we need to strengthen our immune system and not just vaccinate against one individual. So we need to think about both some of these really specific questions around tightening screening or an educator register so we can track where people are. But we also need to think about how do we ensure that we have services that have child safe cultures? And that's a bit of a bigger conversation. Sydney Pead: Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. There have been allegations of sexual abuse in centres across the country. A Four Corners report by the ABC's Adele Ferguson documented instances of poor food quality, rough handling and abuse and neglect. Is it fair to say that the government's response to the incident is not to be taken as a positive? Is it fair to say that the entire industry is in crisis? Caroline Croser-Barlow: I think that isn't fair to say. So it's the vast majority of services where parents are taking their children every day are safe and indeed high quality. And what we're seeing, I think, is the way that over the last decade or so, the carrots and sticks have gotten out of balance. By which I mean that the sector has grown much faster in response to Commonwealth funding on the table through childcare subsidies than the states have been able to keep up with in terms of investing in quality and regulation. So as we embark on kind of this next phase of Prime Minister Albanese has talked about a commitment to universal early childhood education and care and expanding access. Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister: This is the single biggest investment by an Australian government ever in new childcare services that will bring the opportunity of early education to regions and suburbs that have been forgotten for too long. Caroline Croser-Barlow: I think this is a moment where we need to think, let's not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let's make sure that we don't just focus on growth, that we think about how we make sure that we're growing safely and with high quality. And that's going to require the Commonwealth, which does most of the funding and the states and territories which do most of the regulatory and quality building to work closely together. Sydney Pead: If there are these huge vulnerabilities in the system that put children at risk, should we really be encouraging the expansion of a sector before these issues are addressed? Caroline Croser-Barlow: I agree that there is a challenge that if the Commonwealth incentivises more supply coming online without thinking about how to ensure quality, that we might end up with lower quality services that don't actually help and maybe harm kids. So I think the first thing that would be very helpful is for a national settlement where the Commonwealth and the states come together and say, oh, yeah, actually, between us, someone needs to be responsible for quality. Someone needs to be responsible for making sure there's enough supply everywhere so that families can have access to high quality education and care. And it is someone's job to make sure the whole system is high quality and safe. Sydney Pead: So the federal education minister, Jason Clare, says he plans to bring legislation to Parliament in the next few months to cut off funding to childcare centres that fail to meet the national quality standards. The question is, how would he or authorities know if centres are falling short? Shouldn't they? I mean, they shouldn't be operating in the first place, should they? Caroline Croser-Barlow: So Australia has a world leading national quality framework. We really are the envy of the world, although it's hard to imagine it on a day like today. We aren't delivering quality to every child in every service. What Minister Clare is saying is that where services are consistently not meeting the national quality standard, things aren't getting better. Or where a provider who has a lot of services that aren't meeting the service, he's saying those people should not be eligible for childcare subsidy. And that's he's talking about bringing legislation to the Parliament, which would obviously essentially render the business unviable because childcare subsidy is such an important part of the funding of ECEC. This is really pleasing because it shows that the Commonwealth has stopped just thinking its responsibility is to make early childhood education and care affordable. And it started thinking, actually, we also need to make sure that the system is quality. There will be some problems associated with this. It's going to be a bit tricky. So the phenomenon of phoenixing, which we see in other industries, is not uncommon in early childhood education and care. So that's where a service might shut down and then the same directors of that company might reopen a service somewhere else, even though the first one was shut down because things weren't working well. But in general, they have pretty good ability to go and assess and look at what's happening in individual services. So I don't think it's it's beyond the government's to be able to do it if they if they really put their minds to it. Sydney Pead: What about if there are concerns about an individual working at a centre, but it doesn't become a police investigation, what is stopping that person from jumping between centres? Do we have a problem with information sharing and do we need mechanisms to stop people from moving on before police can get involved, for example? Caroline Croser-Barlow: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the conversations that is happening right now is about an educator register. And that would allow there to be a body to which complaints could be made. Those sorts of registers are obviously time consuming and kind of tricky to set up, but would add a lot of value. And again, I get the sense that there's a bit of momentum coming in behind that idea. Sydney Pead: What about the quality, the pay, the training of staff? Does that all play a role here as well? Do you think we get better care and safer kids if there's a boost to pay and training in these kinds of things within the centres? Caroline Croser-Barlow: Absolutely. So the most important predictor of quality is the relationship between the educator and the child. So services that prioritise that kind of quality, that are really intentionally creating those kinds of experiences are also services that I would argue are thinking a lot about safety. They're thinking a lot about how are we with the children? You know, what are the individuals interacting with children? How are we operating? Those are questions that are much harder to tackle if you've got really inexperienced workforce who might find it hard to know that something looks a bit odd or that might find it hard to say out loud that something's a bit odd. For example, we know that there's a really high use of casual workforce in some service types and provider types. And that's really problematic because if you're a casual, both you're not kind of part of a really high quality ongoing program, but also you're kind of at the whims of the of the employer. So it's harder to raise concerns and say, well, hang on a second, I've got a worry here. And I think what we're seeing now is that actually you need to have an active effort from state and territory and Commonwealth governments to improve quality, not just regulate for safety, but actually to invest in improving quality. And we can start to see some really good things happening. Sydney Pead: There will be a lot of parents out there right now who are sending their kids to childcare today with serious concerns for their well-being. What sort of advice do you have to reassure parents? Can they ever really be 100 percent sure? Caroline Croser-Barlow: I think the first and most important thing is to talk with your educator and the room leader and your centre director about how they think about child safety. So I would be asking them things like, how do you ensure that children are supervised at all times? You know, how long have staff been here? What's your turnover like? These are not in an interrogative way, but these are really good questions for services to think about in terms of how they are keeping their child safety culture alive. And so it's really hard, I know, as a parent to live with a little bit of uncertainty about horrible things. And I don't have any any magic answer to fix that. But I think always when you're in a service, think about how do I feel? Do I feel like this service knows my child? Do I feel like the educators know my child and care about my child? Does it feel like it's purposeful? Those are the markers of services that are doing the right things and I think are less likely to have these kinds of issues. Sydney Pead: Caroline Croser-Barlow is the chief executive of early learning advocacy body The Front Project. And if you have experienced childhood trauma or abuse, you can call the Blue Knot helpline on 1300 657 380. Today's show was produced by Kara Jensen Mackinnon. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sydney Pead. ABC News Daily will be back again tomorrow. Thanks so much.
News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Police charge second man with child sex abuse offences following Joshua Brown allegations
Police have revealed fresh details about the allegations surrounding a second man charged with child sexual offences, following Tuesday's revelation of the alleged large-scale sexual abuse of children at Victorian childcare centres. The allegations against the second man, Michael Simon Wilson, stem from the probe into childcare worker Joshua Brown. Yesterday, Victorian Police revealed they had charged Mr Brown, 26, with 70 offences after he allegedly abused eight children at a Point Cook childcare centre in Melbourne. It is alleged some children were as young as five months. A widespread investigation has now been launched, with Victoria's chief health officer saying 1200 children have been recommended to undergo infectious diseases testing. Mr Wilson and Mr Brown are reportedly known to each other, though the nature of the relationship is unclear. On Wednesday afternoon, Victorian Police revealed Mr Wilson was a 36-year-old man from Hoppers Crossing. 'Detectives from the Sexual Crimes Squad have charged a man in relation to an alleged sexual assault in Coburg in April,' a police spokeswoman said. 'A 36-year-old Hoppers Crossing man has been charged with a range of sexual offences including rape. 'The charges relate to an investigation into an incident in Coburg on April 16 where a teenage boy was allegedly sexually assaulted.' Mr Wilson's alleged offences are not believed to involve childcare centres or any of Mr Brown's alleged victims. Mr Brown was arrested on May 12 and is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on September 15. Mr Wilson will appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on the same day. Police allege Mr Brown worked at 20 centres across the state between January 2017 and May 2025. On Wednesday, Education Minister Jason Clare revealed he knew a family impacted by the allegations. 'I know that they're angry because (I know) one of those parents and her two little girls are directly affected by this,' Mr Clare said on Wednesday. 'And I won't tell you what she told me last night because you can't repeat it on television, but she's right to be mad. 'I'm mad. I think anyone who works in the early education system and there's hundreds of thousands of fantastic people who do, would be angry today as well. 'And my friend is mad because of all of the stress and the trauma and the crap that she and her girls are going to have to go through in the weeks ahead.' Christian McGrath, Victoria's chief health officer, said 2600 families had been contacted in the fallout from the arrest of Mr Brown. The Department of Health has recommended 1200 children undergo screening and testing as a 'precautionary measure'. 'The risk is low, but there's not no risk, which is why we're making this recommendation,' he said in an update from Wednesday. He said the department had assisted 1300 families across Tuesday. Mr Clare said the problem of predators in childcare settings was 'serious' and required 'serious action'. 'It's one of the reasons why I put this on the top of the agenda when education ministers met last week,' he said. 'Let me be clear – when education ministers met to discuss child safety last week, we didn't discuss this case, but we discussed – what are the next steps that we need to take as a nation to make sure that our kids are safe in early education and care?' The federal government has already banned personal mobile phones in centres and changed rules around mandatory reporting from seven days to 24 hours following complaints about sexual or physical abuse. Mr Clare promised further reforms, including cutting off funding for centres that fail to meet minimum standards. He also flagged changes to background checks for workers. 'It's taken too long to do the work necessary to make sure that our Working with Children Check system is up to scratch,' he said. 'I've spoken a number of times with the Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland, the new Attorney-General, and I think I can safely speak on her behalf – she agrees, and is determined to take the action necessary here to make sure that our working with children checks across the nation are up to scratch. 'That'll be something that will be discussed by Attorneys-General when they meet next month.' He cautioned that a working with children check was not a 'silver bullet'. 'In too many examples, a perpetrator is eventually caught and arrested and sentenced, there's somebody that got a Working with Children Check because they had no prior criminal record,' he said. 'And so it's only one of the things that we need to focus on here if we're serious about making sure that we keep our kids safe.' Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said urgent changes were also incoming for the state. 'There is a substantial amount of work that is already underway across the Commonwealth and state and territory governments to strengthen the safety in the sector,' she said in a fresh update on Wednesday. 'Here in Victoria, though, I won't wait. Families cannot wait. More needs to happen now.' The state government will immediately begin building a register for childcare workers, she said, and will bring forward a policy to ban personal devices in centres. 'To avoid delay, we'll be putting all Victorian childcare centres on notice,' she said. 'They will be required to adopt this ban on personal devices, effective from September 26. 'Childcare centres who don't comply with this ban will have this placed on them as a condition of licence and may face fines of up to $50,000. The premier will also commission an 'urgent review' into childcare safety, with more details expected at the end of the week. The review will examine the possibility of installing CCTV cameras in centres and the deploying a 'four eyes' principle, meaning children should not be left alone with a single adult. It will also review whether the five-year working with children check time frame should be shortened. The premier said she had 'not been briefed' on Mr Wilson's arrest. Some families will be eligible for a $5000 support payment, the government has confirmed, to help cover alternative care arrangements, loss of earnings and other practical needs in the fallout from Tuesday.
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
WA coroner makes nine recommendations after finding policeman acted 'too hastily' before shooting JC
A Western Australian coroner has found the fatal shooting of a woman by police on a Geraldton street was preventable, and has made nine recommendations to prevent a similar outcome in the future. WARNING: The following story contains discussions of suicidal ideation and the image of an Indigenous person who has died. The 29-year-old Ngarlawangga Yamatji Martu woman, referred to as JC for cultural reasons, was shot dead by officer Brent Wyndham, after she was recently released from prison and reported to be walking down a suburban street holding a knife in September 2019. Two years later, Mr Wyndham was acquitted of murder after telling his WA Supreme Court trial he acted in self-defence, believing she was going to stab him before he fired his weapon. The verdict sparked an outpouring of grief from JC's friends and family as well as the local Indigenous community. A two-week coronial inquest last year in Geraldton and Perth examined the actions of the eight officers at the scene of the shooting. The inquest focused on factors including the circumstances of JC's death, the adequacy of WA Police policies and training concerning de-escalation and use of force, and the adequacy of mental health care she received in the weeks prior to her death. Coroner Ros Fogliani ultimately found JC's death to be a "lawful homicide". However, she found there were a number of opportunities for police to de-escalate the situation. Coroner Fogliani said JC's death was preventable, despite it being unknown whether a de-escalation tactic could have prevented the shooting. The findings detailed how JC had endured a difficult life, which was marred by long-term impacts, with her likely fetal alcohol spectrum disorder contributing to her volatility. She said JC's social factors became "overwhelming" and contributed to some instances of poor decision-making in her life. The findings stated JC's homelessness exacerbated her "fragile mental state", leading to suicidal thoughts. Both the inquest and trial highlighted the significant challenges JC faced accessing effective mental health care, particularly after her return to Geraldton. She had been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and drug induced psychosis by age 20, with an additional diagnosis of schizophrenia made in later years. But with the bulk of her treatment taking place in Perth, the inquest heard she effectively fell off the radar of local support services after her return to country. Amongst Ms Fogliani's recommendations is a call for better information sharing between WA's various health services, as well as between health and WA Police, about potentially vulnerable people re-entering the community. "That she died three weeks after her release from prison ... is very telling," Coroner Fogliani said. The coroner said Mr Wyndham shot JC within 17 seconds of leaving his vehicle. "He acted too hastily in running towards the threat posed by JC, not considering communication with the other police officer who was trying to engage with JC and putting himself in a situation where he perceived the need to fire," she said. Coroner Fogliani said JC's premature death caused immeasurable grief for her family and caused distress for Aboriginal communities. "It sadly reactivated and magnified the historical mistrust and antipathy that many Aboriginal persons feel towards police officers, for reasons that are well known and deeply embedded in the unfortunate and brutal consequences of colonisation," she said. The coroner said she was satisfied WA Police missed opportunities to effectively train the attending officers at the incident. "There were missed opportunities to communicate, which may have avoided JC being approached so quickly," she said. Coroner Fogliani said she could not exclude JC was having a psychotic episode when she was fatally shot. "JC fell through the cracks in the system," she said. The coroner said she was hopeful her recommendations would assist in providing "continuity of care and follow up" when Aboriginal people are removed from Country for treatment. The findings also included nine recommendations from the coroner, the first being improving relations with Aboriginal communities. Coroner Fogliani said consideration should be given to establishing a section or branch within WA Police dedicated to improving the relationship between police and Aboriginal people. Coroner Fogliani recommended WA Police oversee Aboriginal Cultural Awareness training, to be co-designed with and delivered by Indigenous people — on a regular basis. She asked for the effect of intergenerational trauma, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the importance of cultural wellbeing, to be a focus. There was a recommendation for six police officers to undergo additional training. Coroner Fogliani also made a number of recommendations into the treatment of people with mental health issues. She called for the Department of Health to consult with WA Police, in working on how relevant information, such as mental health conditions can be shared between agencies. A recommendation was also made for discharging health service providers to consider notifying local health services a patient was returning to Country or an area they habitually reside.
