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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Some NT childcare centres hiring staff without reference checks, director says
A veteran childcare centre director has spoken out about inadequate vetting of new workers' employment histories in the Northern Territory, which she says leaves potential misconduct unchecked. This week Victoria Police charged a 26-year-old childcare worker with more than 70 offences allegedly relating to eight children at a Melbourne childcare centre. The alleged offender, Joshua Dale Brown, is understood to have worked at 20 childcare centres in Victoria between January 2017 and May 2025. The allegations of child sexual abuse have left parents reeling, with some 1,200 children being recommended to get tested for sexually transmitted infections. In the Northern Territory, the director of the Territory Child Care Group, Sarah Lloyd, said there were gaps in the regulation of the NT's childcare sector, particularly around the vetting of workers when starting or changing roles between centres. Ms Lloyd said she was aware of recent examples in the Northern Territory where an employer had not attempted to conduct thorough reference checks for new staff. "It's more common than we would like to think," she said. Ms Lloyd, who has almost 20 years' experience in the sector, said early childhood employers in the NT must be required to follow industry guidelines for reference checks, with their most recent supervisors asked specific questions about disciplinary matters. "There is a lot of good material that's been produced for child-safe organisations where they go through steps, but it's not mandated that you have to [follow them], and it's not checked." she said. In response to the allegations in Victoria, federal Education Minister Jason Clare has said reforms to standardise Working with Children Checks across the country "can't happen soon enough". Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the NT government was "working through" the territory's childcare sector regulations and would support a move towards a national Working With Children Check (WWCC). "Everything at this point is on the table," she said. Janet Williams-Smith, the general manager of inclusion and early intervention at Early Childhood Australia NT, said the territory needed to prioritise a "reportable conduct scheme" that required childcare educators to report alleged worker misconduct. That scheme would be distinct from the NT's mandatory reporting laws, which compel members of the public to report any suspicions of child abuse or neglect to a child protection reporting line. "A reportable conduct scheme is whereby people working in early childhood education and care are obliged to report allegations of child abuse and child-related misconduct to bodies such as the Commission for Children and Young People in Victoria," Ms Williams-Smith said. Both Ms Williams-Smith and Ms Lloyd said the NT's current WWCC was useful only in the detection of a criminal history, and would not detect allegations of workplace misconduct or mistreatment of children. They both supported moves to speed up the development of a national register of early childhood educators. Ms Lloyd said the majority of educators were committed to children's wellbeing and best work practices, but needed to see improved pay and conditions and greater community support for their work. "There's room for improvement, as with any sector, but I think we just need to value those good educators and really support and promote the value that they really bring to people's families," she said. "Most people who work with children, work with children because they have a strong investment and leaning, almost a calling, to work with children. Most people don't do it for the money. "But we need to be much more explicit about our expectations of those people."
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service reports rising number of LGBTQIA+ clients who 'fear for their life' if returned home
Holding hands, a kiss — they're simple and sweet displays of affection. But Sam* doesn't take them for granted. Sam comes from a country where being gay is considered "against the order of nature" and is enough to land them more than a decade in jail. They said it's a place where civilians "take matters into their own hands" and turn their neighbours in, where intimate details of someone's life are shamed in the media. It wasn't until Sam came to Australia as a teenager that they were free to explore their sexuality for the first time — albeit in secret from their parents. "I was more comfortable with just being myself and expressing that part of myself," they said. So, when their family's application for permanent residency was knocked back, and the possibility of returning loomed large, Sam took matters into their own hands. "I was like, 'no, I can't go back, I can't hide myself anymore,'" Sam said. LGBTQIA+ people with a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country based on their gender or sexuality can be considered refugees under Australia's Migration Act. Sam turned to the Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service (TRLS), arguing to the Department of Home Affairs that being gay exposed them to serious harm. Their application for permanent protection was successful. "I felt like a weight was lifted off my back, like I was so relieved," they said. Sixty-seven countries criminalise people for their sexual orientation, with punishments ranging from months behind bars to a life sentence. In some places, it's the death penalty. TRLS principal lawyer Patrick O'Connor said the danger often extended beyond the state, to hostility from families and the community and systemic discrimination in employment, housing, health and education. Mr O'Connor said the service was representing a growing number of clients in similar circumstances to Sam — as were his interstate colleagues — the majority coming to the end of student, work or holiday visas. And he believed there could be many more with legitimate asylum claims — potentially hundreds in Tasmania alone — that hadn't come forward, likely out of fear of retribution or because they didn't understand Australia's domestic law. Mr O'Connor is seeking funding to dedicate a lawyer to this caseload, and to run community workshops around Tasmania providing general legal education to help people understand the law, and make them feel comfortable approaching the service. "There's a lot at stake for the applicant," he said. "Providing legal representation is critical, and is life-changing, and can make all the difference." More community outreach and legal support is something Migrant Resource Centre Tasmania also endorses. But she said it was vital all new arrivals, not just from the LGBTQIA+ community, were taught gender and sexuality discrimination was not tolerated in Australia. "All people who have diverse gender identities and sexual orientations are vulnerable in the community, but for those who are from migrant backgrounds, from refugee backgrounds and from asylum seeker backgrounds, they're extremely vulnerable," she said. "They may be particularly wary of connecting with their cultural community here because they know that their cultural community won't accept them and will discriminate against them. Ms Long said it was vital that services understood how various aspects of someone's identity — including country of origin, race, ethnicity, language, gender and sexuality — intersected and supported LGBTQIA+ migrants accordingly. For Sam, the new-found security has "opened up a whole world of possibilities". *Name has been changed.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
ACT childcare safety practice could be the answer to a national approach, commissioner says
The revelation on Tuesday that a Victorian childcare worker had been arrested for over 70 alleged child sexual abuse charges sent shock waves through the entire country. It left state and territory governments scrambling to ensure the child safety protocols in their early childhood education and care sectors were effective. In 2015 the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended that Working With Children Checks (WWCCs) across the country be both standardised and nationalised. A decade on they're still handled at the state and territory level, with different practices in different jurisdictions, but experts are calling for that to be changed. At present some jurisdictions WWCCs are a point in time check, updated only on the day they are issued with a list of offences from that person's criminal history. In the ACT the equivalent of WWCCs are Working With Vulnerable People (WWVP) checks, which already include ongoing assessment of a person's eligibility to work with vulnerable people. They can also involve national criminal history checks along with other relevant disciplinary and police information — and when someone is deregistered, protocol requires the national database for WWCCs be notified of that. ACT Children and Young People Commissioner Jodie Griffiths-Cook said the incident in Victoria was a "devastating reminder of our collective responsibility to do all we can" to protect children from harm. She said creating national consistency in WWCCs could help the childcare sector do that — and that including features of the ACT's WWVP registry could offer value to that proposed national scheme. "I certainly think this [incident in Victoria] is a real reminder of the importance and the value of having those kind of systems that speak to each other across our state and territory boarders," Commissioner Griffiths-Cook said. "If we're going to go down the path of having such a registry, we need to make sure we're also including some of the best practice features that we've got here in the ACT, like continuous monitoring of WWVP registry." Commissioner Griffiths-Cook said that continuous monitoring was part of what made the ACT well-placed to manage safety in its childcare sector, along with being a smaller jurisdiction. A national register of early childhood education and care workers is another safety protocol experts believe could improve child safety in the sector. Early Childhood Australia CEO Sam Page said a national registration scheme for educators, similar to the one used for teachers, had been on the agenda for several years. "We have registration for teachers, and we can see how that works," Ms Page said. "We're not waiting for teachers to commit a criminal offence. "If we see teachers struggling, if we see poor practice, if we see inappropriate behaviour, the teachers board can react to that quickly and proactively and prevent anything worse from happening. "That's what we need for educators as well." Another reform being considered for the childcare sector across different states and territories is a ban on using personal mobile phones in centres. Commissioner Griffiths-Cook said the risks of someone being able to inadvertently film or photograph a child was important to mitigate. ACT Education and Early Childhood Minister Yvette Berry said the territory government was "absolutely on board" with understanding what such a ban would look like. She said she was in talks with NSW Education and Early Learning Minister Prue Car following the state's review into its childcare sector to consider what parts of its recommendations would be appropriate for the ACT. Ms Berry said part of that was the consideration of introducing CCTV in childcare centres for added safety monitoring. She said while she understood why some might have concerns about the considered CCTV use and mobile phone ban, it would include ensuring there was appropriate policies around how they were used in services. Though updated policies and national registers could offer improvement to child safety, Sam Page said the safety of children still came back to the team of educators working with them every day in childcare services. She said the vast majority of those educators were totally committed to child safety and wellbeing, but that needed to be supported. "We need to support a culture of reporting and constant risk vigilance, so that if educators are concerned about another educator's behaviour — think they're crossing boundaries with a child or with their family — they can raise those concerns and those concerns will be taken seriously, and there will be a response to that really quickly. "Sexual abuse perpetrators are incredibly insidious, and we need every other educator to be alert to that risk and to be watching out for signs of risk and taking preventative action."
