Revelations about alleged abuse confirm urgency of childcare reforms
One of the charges against Victorian childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown is that he recklessly contaminated goods to cause alarm or anxiety, which relates to allegations he added bodily fluids to children's food.
The 26-year-old is accused of abusing eight young children at a Point Cook centre between April 2022 and January 2023. His work at 20 Victorian facilities over his eight-year career has sparked the testing of more than 1200 children for sexually transmitted infections.
As horrified parents grapple with the latest scandal at a childcare centre, an abuse survivors' collective has called for a ban on male workers.
The problem here is that childcare is not simply childcare. It is, as the federal government knows, a vital building block in the way modern Australian families live, and it underpins our economy. Put simply, parents cannot work productively unless they can outsource this care for part of the day.
The uproar surrounding the case of Joshua Brown understandably has parents demanding immediate action.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made widened access to childcare a key part of his re-election pitch, and has introduced legislation to guarantee three days of subsidised early education and care universally, with talk of a flat-fee system as part of his second-term vision. His government has also pushed for higher wages for childcare workers.
But this week's revelations bring us back to fundamental questions about a sector that the Commonwealth and states are anxious to build out rapidly. In March, reporting by the ABC's Four Corners showed that childcare centres are allowed to continue operating despite falling short of regulatory standards, that regulation is infrequent, and staff are sometimes unqualified. At the time, Albanese insisted that a royal commission into these allegations was unnecessary, since states would be able to investigate such clear wrongdoing.
At a hastily convened press conference on Wednesday, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and her Minister for Children Lizzie Blandthorn implied Victoria was moving quickly on reforming the sector, only to find itself frustrated by the pace of progress at the national level.
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