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The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Is my child safe?': Jason Clare faces a quagmire in childcare crisis — fixing a sector without controlling all the levers
More than 1300 worried parents nationwide joined a webinar on safety in early education this week from families advocacy network The Parenthood, tuning in after weeks of sickening reports of alleged abuse at childcare centres. Georgie Dent, CEO of The Parenthood, said the allegations from Victoria had panicked families countrywide. 'I haven't seen parents' trust in safety rattled in the way it is now,' she told Guardian Australia. 'It's not just parents in Melbourne or Victoria being fearful of early childhood education – many are engaging for the first time, asking 'is my child safe?'' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email It's the quagmire facing education minister Jason Clare and early childhood minister Jess Walsh as parliament returns on Tuesday for the first time since the election. While this week was meant to be a victory lap for the government – highlighting Labor's thumping 94-seat caucus, capped by giving a parade to their Hecs debt reduction bill – the minister now finds himself facing urgent demands to safeguard a system where he doesn't control all the levers, with critical safety functions shared across eight state and territory systems. Labor has put early education at the centre of its agenda following prime minister Anthony Albanese singling out universal childcare as his 'legacy' during the election campaign – by giving pay rises to educators, offering childcare in its free Tafe program, and widening access to subsidies. But providers say they need more to keep kids safe. One major Australian childcare provider said they needed Canberra to do more on safety training and lead the states into establishing nationally consistent rules on reporting systems and stripping working-with-children accreditation, which can vary by jurisdiction. 'States don't talk to each other,' one executive said. More training, including pupil-free days each year for training – like primary and high schools – has been mooted. 'Quality and safety are inextricably linked. Better qualified and experienced teachers translate to improved risk,' Dent said, calling better training for workers 'the most significant piece' in keeping kids safer. Clare will introduce a bill this fortnight empowering the commonwealth to terminate federal subsidies to childcare operators guilty of egregious safety breaches, ban providers failing minimum standards, boost unannounced spot-checks and issue public notices to underperforming centres. A separate push for a national worker database, tracking movements of staff, will be considered separately at a meeting of education ministers in August. Clare has admitted progress has been too slow; there are questions about why abhorrent childcare abuse uncovered in 2022 didn't already lead to wider system changes. But let's park that for now, and focus on what Clare and Walsh will put forward this fortnight. While the Coalition opposition has pledged to be constructive and are likely to support the government, acknowledging the need for swift action, some Liberals don't believe the government's plan goes to the core of child safety issues. Shadow assistant minister Zoe McKenzie warned it 'may not go far enough' – with many pertinent powers resting with the states, the Coalition will urge Labor to show more 'national leadership' and prod the states into swifter action. The states are moving on their own. Victoria announced its own childcare worker registration system, and will require childcare centres to adopt the federal ban on personal devices or face a $50k fine. Dent said it went beyond parents and families, going to a broader economic imperative; with more families than ever needing two incomes to stay afloat, giving confidence about kids' safety while parents work is critical to keeping food on the table, she said. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'This sector has grown out of necessity … but the regulation and oversight has not kept pace. Education access, workforce capacity, it's all under strain,' she said. 'Child safety is not being guaranteed across the board to the extent parents and children expect.' Providers say they're eager to make their centres safer, but with some announcing the roll out of CCTV cameras in early learning and more choices for parents over the care of their children. Some say the money could be better spent, instead suggesting training more educators to ensure children aren't left alone with just one teacher. Concern has also been raised about the misuse of captured footage. Ten months ago, a Productivity Commission report setting out a pathway to universal childcare recommended an independent commission to take a 'comprehensive national view'. The PC noted 'limited transparency and accountability – both from governments and service providers'. Dent and The Parenthood have long called for such a model, as have the largest childcare providers, saying a major national body was critical to tie together safety, training, regulation and monitoring. Clare has said the government has 'an open mind' about such a body to look at safety issues. Other major providers have praised federal pay rises for educators, and free Tafe for educators, as gamechangers – but raised concern about completion rates and the quality of some vocational courses. More must be done to attract good people and keep them in the industry. G8 Education, one of Australia's largest providers, welcomed changes to improve safety – but a spokesperson said 'harmonising policies, regulations, systems and processes' across different levels of government was urgently needed. They also backed a national registry of staff working with vulnerable people as well as a national registration scheme for teachers. Parents want assurance that their kids will be safe, but Australia's cross-jurisdictional system means it's not an easy fix. Clare's job will not be easy. 'We need to be reassuring parents the vast majority of services are good and there for the right reasons, most are really well qualified,' Dent said. 'The challenge is restoring confidence where it's warranted and raising alarm where it's needed.' 'Parents are distressed.'
The Age
12-07-2025
- General
- The Age
The care fracture: how shocking abuse allegations have hit mothers
Writing on the professional women's website Women's Agenda this week, The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent also named this mother-blame phenomenon: 'In this moment of national grief and reckoning, the last thing families need is guilt piled on top of their fear and distress,' she wrote. 'And yet, some are using this crisis to argue that parents (but mostly mums) should just stay home – as if that's a real or simple choice for most families.' The blame and shame comments have been posted online on news articles about the abuse allegations, and in parenting forums on social media. On the longstanding parenting site Kidspot, columnist Lauren Robinson said she also uses childcare and noted: 'I'm sick of seeing that decision twisted into some suggestion of parental neglect.' Dr Emily Musgrove, resident psychologist on the hit podcast The Imperfects, on Thursday alluded to the resurfacing of the similarly enduring myth 'that the mum is available and responsible at all times'. 'My sense is we [mothers in this generation] are getting so much more exposed to guilt because we are violating this idealised mother role,' she said. Loading Numbers of women working are at a record high, as are numbers of children in early learning centres, supported by government policies encouraging women back to work. That backward ideas about working mothers have re-emerged following childcare abuse allegations has troubled advocates, especially as policies now exist to also support fathers to participate in childcare. The proportion of Australians grappling with juggling work and family care is not insignificant. In the March quarter of 2025, approximately 1,444,410 children from 1,015,790 families in Australia were using Child Care Subsidy (CCS)-approved care. These children attended an average of 27.5 hours of care per week. Data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows that as of the March quarter last year, 48 per cent of one-year-olds were enrolled in CCS-approved childcare services, up from 39 per cent in 2015. 'We are seeing an increasing proportion of new mothers remaining in employment after childbirth, with the proportion of employed mothers of an under-one-year-old increasing from 30 per cent in 1991 to 57 per cent in 2021,' a spokeswoman says. But academics including Melbourne University sociology professor Leah Ruppanner say the psychological burden of the tension between government policies – and economic conditions – that encourage both parents to work soon after having babies is still assigned primarily to mothers. Ruppanner's book, Drained, on women as the disproportionate mental load-bearers of parenting comes out next year. Anxiety triggered by disturbing childcare-abuse news is likely to also be felt by fathers, she said, but social pressure and responsibility for care of young children is still squarely on women. 'Mothers have an incredible amount of guilt, especially around whether they're being 'good' mothers, and now the energy of thinking about safety is just going to add one more layer to the mental load,' she says. 'We've been told women are solely responsible for the future of their children so you'd better not mess it up ... People think [mothers] have these open choices, but they don't. They're constrained economically, attitudinally.' Though she gains great satisfaction from her career as a registered psychologist south-west of Sydney, Alysha-Leigh Femeli says she has felt this tension between leaving young children in care – even during 'a very slow transition' – and the fulfilment of re-engaging in her work. She has treated families in the perinatal period for 13 years and is told by clients that they are so distressed by the recent child abuse allegations they are questioning if they should keep working. It is a sentiment voiced by one distressed mother interviewed on TV as she collected her toddler from Creative Gardens, the childcare centre at which alleged offender Joshua Dale Brown worked in south-western Melbourne. As the Victorian Department of Health prepared to text families of 1200 children aged five months to two years old, urging them to arrange STI tests for their babies and toddlers, the mother said she was questioning whether she should work. Loading Femeli says this is not an uncommon response. 'Women are terrified, really terrified, and I've had people wondering whether they should just pull their kids out of care because they feel so scared – this feels like something they hadn't even anticipated as an option. 'For a lot of women, working is a really important part of caring for their mental health,' she says. To have a break from [constantly caring for young children] can also be 'an important part of making sure they are wonderful mothers,' she says. Even so, 'I found it really hard going back to work, I had families [to see] but I felt heartbroken at the idea I would leave my babies … 'But I would always come back from work feeling really rejuvenated, like I'd gotten to use my brain; it was important for me to do be able to do that.' Femeli, a member of the Australian Association of Psychologists, describes the 'spike of anxiety' mothers may already feel when returning to work, and says it is driven by stubborn gender stereotypes. 'There is still a societal expectation that women will be the primary caregivers regardless of how much they are working: so you are going to 'fail' somewhere, either your employers or your responsibilities as a caregiver,' she says. 'I don't think I have a perinatal client who hasn't come with some level of guilt because they've had to go to work.' Unlike those in some European and Nordic countries, Australian culture expects mothers to take responsibility for childcare even when they are working and the mother's income is vital, she says. Yet mothers tell Femeli their sense is that their employment is considered more 'disposable'. Though the gender equality movement has fought to shift assumptions about parenting and women's right to participate in employment, clients feel the message still received is, 'when a woman comes back to work, it's almost like someone is doing her a favour by letting her come back'. And this is concerning. Femeli is among those calling for better support for mothers and families as they juggle financial imperatives and their need to provide quality care to babies and very young children, as she believes getting women into work has been a higher priority than supporting mothers and children. She urges mothers who may feel consumed with worry or guilt as a result of recent news to realise it is not normal and to speak to their GP rather than decide on changing their work pattern while feeling unsettled. As rates of young mothers working full-time increase, workplace gender equality consultant Prue Gilbert says corporate women are also reporting rising feelings of guilt, more so than in previous years. 'We are hearing in coaching that women are returning to work earlier [after having babies] than they have done in the past, and are more likely to be going back full-time,' says Gilbert, chief executive of the workplace/parents consultancy Grace Papers. On May 15, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released data showing women's participation in the workforce had reached a record high of 63.4 per cent. A general rise in employment participation 'was strongest for women workers, increasing by 65,000, including 42,000 full-time jobs'. 'The data indicates the federal government's commitment to Early Childhood Education and Care and working women's rights is helping more women to find and stay in secure jobs,' the bureau stated. Loading Gilbert says feelings of guilt came through as she reviewed coaching insights: 'Guilt kept on coming up in themes. We haven't heard it so strongly in quite a number of years.' She wonders if the earlier work return, driven by economic uncertainty and organisational restructuring, is contributing. Ironically, use-it-or-lose it parental leave policies for fathers, which mean they need to take their entitlement within the first 12 months of the baby's life or forfeit it, are contributing to mothers' earlier return to employment. This phenomenon has also crossed the radar of the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Ged Kearney. 'I went back to work seven weeks after my twins were born – it was a difficult choice, but the right one for me,' Kearney says. 'What made things even harder was the judgment I faced – it's horrible that in the 2020s we're still having this conversation. 'No parent should feel guilty for going or not going back to work and every parent deserves to know their children are safe and cared for.' As her government prepares to bring legislation to parliament to cut off funding to early education centres that put profit over child safety, Georgie Dent continues to put pressure on it to create an independent national early childhood commission, as recommended by the Productivity Commission's landmark review. It would oversee safety, quality, access, workforce and funding, and ensure children are protected and services are accountable – reassurance parents need. Loading 'For so many households with young children, they are having a really hard time: financially, economically ... it's a luxury position to be able to stay afloat on one income,' says Dent. 'I have seen an unprecedented level of anguish and distress among parents … and been thinking about how it's so cruel to add guilt on top of that.'
Sydney Morning Herald
12-07-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
The care fracture: how shocking abuse allegations have hit mothers
Writing on the professional women's website Women's Agenda this week, The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent also named this mother-blame phenomenon: 'In this moment of national grief and reckoning, the last thing families need is guilt piled on top of their fear and distress,' she wrote. 'And yet, some are using this crisis to argue that parents (but mostly mums) should just stay home – as if that's a real or simple choice for most families.' The blame and shame comments have been posted online on news articles about the abuse allegations, and in parenting forums on social media. On the longstanding parenting site Kidspot, columnist Lauren Robinson said she also uses childcare and noted: 'I'm sick of seeing that decision twisted into some suggestion of parental neglect.' Dr Emily Musgrove, resident psychologist on the hit podcast The Imperfects, on Thursday alluded to the resurfacing of the similarly enduring myth 'that the mum is available and responsible at all times'. 'My sense is we [mothers in this generation] are getting so much more exposed to guilt because we are violating this idealised mother role,' she said. Loading Numbers of women working are at a record high, as are numbers of children in early learning centres, supported by government policies encouraging women back to work. That backward ideas about working mothers have re-emerged following childcare abuse allegations has troubled advocates, especially as policies now exist to also support fathers to participate in childcare. The proportion of Australians grappling with juggling work and family care is not insignificant. In the March quarter of 2025, approximately 1,444,410 children from 1,015,790 families in Australia were using Child Care Subsidy (CCS)-approved care. These children attended an average of 27.5 hours of care per week. Data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows that as of the March quarter last year, 48 per cent of one-year-olds were enrolled in CCS-approved childcare services, up from 39 per cent in 2015. 'We are seeing an increasing proportion of new mothers remaining in employment after childbirth, with the proportion of employed mothers of an under-one-year-old increasing from 30 per cent in 1991 to 57 per cent in 2021,' a spokeswoman says. But academics including Melbourne University sociology professor Leah Ruppanner say the psychological burden of the tension between government policies – and economic conditions – that encourage both parents to work soon after having babies is still assigned primarily to mothers. Ruppanner's book, Drained, on women as the disproportionate mental load-bearers of parenting comes out next year. Anxiety triggered by disturbing childcare-abuse news is likely to also be felt by fathers, she said, but social pressure and responsibility for care of young children is still squarely on women. 'Mothers have an incredible amount of guilt, especially around whether they're being 'good' mothers, and now the energy of thinking about safety is just going to add one more layer to the mental load,' she says. 'We've been told women are solely responsible for the future of their children so you'd better not mess it up ... People think [mothers] have these open choices, but they don't. They're constrained economically, attitudinally.' Though she gains great satisfaction from her career as a registered psychologist south-west of Sydney, Alysha-Leigh Femeli says she has felt this tension between leaving young children in care – even during 'a very slow transition' – and the fulfilment of re-engaging in her work. She has treated families in the perinatal period for 13 years and is told by clients that they are so distressed by the recent child abuse allegations they are questioning if they should keep working. It is a sentiment voiced by one distressed mother interviewed on TV as she collected her toddler from Creative Gardens, the childcare centre at which alleged offender Joshua Dale Brown worked in south-western Melbourne. As the Victorian Department of Health prepared to text families of 1200 children aged five months to two years old, urging them to arrange STI tests for their babies and toddlers, the mother said she was questioning whether she should work. Loading Femeli says this is not an uncommon response. 'Women are terrified, really terrified, and I've had people wondering whether they should just pull their kids out of care because they feel so scared – this feels like something they hadn't even anticipated as an option. 'For a lot of women, working is a really important part of caring for their mental health,' she says. To have a break from [constantly caring for young children] can also be 'an important part of making sure they are wonderful mothers,' she says. Even so, 'I found it really hard going back to work, I had families [to see] but I felt heartbroken at the idea I would leave my babies … 'But I would always come back from work feeling really rejuvenated, like I'd gotten to use my brain; it was important for me to do be able to do that.' Femeli, a member of the Australian Association of Psychologists, describes the 'spike of anxiety' mothers may already feel when returning to work, and says it is driven by stubborn gender stereotypes. 'There is still a societal expectation that women will be the primary caregivers regardless of how much they are working: so you are going to 'fail' somewhere, either your employers or your responsibilities as a caregiver,' she says. 'I don't think I have a perinatal client who hasn't come with some level of guilt because they've had to go to work.' Unlike those in some European and Nordic countries, Australian culture expects mothers to take responsibility for childcare even when they are working and the mother's income is vital, she says. Yet mothers tell Femeli their sense is that their employment is considered more 'disposable'. Though the gender equality movement has fought to shift assumptions about parenting and women's right to participate in employment, clients feel the message still received is, 'when a woman comes back to work, it's almost like someone is doing her a favour by letting her come back'. And this is concerning. Femeli is among those calling for better support for mothers and families as they juggle financial imperatives and their need to provide quality care to babies and very young children, as she believes getting women into work has been a higher priority than supporting mothers and children. She urges mothers who may feel consumed with worry or guilt as a result of recent news to realise it is not normal and to speak to their GP rather than decide on changing their work pattern while feeling unsettled. As rates of young mothers working full-time increase, workplace gender equality consultant Prue Gilbert says corporate women are also reporting rising feelings of guilt, more so than in previous years. 'We are hearing in coaching that women are returning to work earlier [after having babies] than they have done in the past, and are more likely to be going back full-time,' says Gilbert, chief executive of the workplace/parents consultancy Grace Papers. On May 15, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released data showing women's participation in the workforce had reached a record high of 63.4 per cent. A general rise in employment participation 'was strongest for women workers, increasing by 65,000, including 42,000 full-time jobs'. 'The data indicates the federal government's commitment to Early Childhood Education and Care and working women's rights is helping more women to find and stay in secure jobs,' the bureau stated. Loading Gilbert says feelings of guilt came through as she reviewed coaching insights: 'Guilt kept on coming up in themes. We haven't heard it so strongly in quite a number of years.' She wonders if the earlier work return, driven by economic uncertainty and organisational restructuring, is contributing. Ironically, use-it-or-lose it parental leave policies for fathers, which mean they need to take their entitlement within the first 12 months of the baby's life or forfeit it, are contributing to mothers' earlier return to employment. This phenomenon has also crossed the radar of the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Ged Kearney. 'I went back to work seven weeks after my twins were born – it was a difficult choice, but the right one for me,' Kearney says. 'What made things even harder was the judgment I faced – it's horrible that in the 2020s we're still having this conversation. 'No parent should feel guilty for going or not going back to work and every parent deserves to know their children are safe and cared for.' As her government prepares to bring legislation to parliament to cut off funding to early education centres that put profit over child safety, Georgie Dent continues to put pressure on it to create an independent national early childhood commission, as recommended by the Productivity Commission's landmark review. It would oversee safety, quality, access, workforce and funding, and ensure children are protected and services are accountable – reassurance parents need. Loading 'For so many households with young children, they are having a really hard time: financially, economically ... it's a luxury position to be able to stay afloat on one income,' says Dent. 'I have seen an unprecedented level of anguish and distress among parents … and been thinking about how it's so cruel to add guilt on top of that.'
ABC News
02-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
The childcare subsidy gives parents 'choice', but the government must ensure good choices are available
This week's horrifying allegations against a Melbourne childcare worker have provoked shock, grief and reckoning. For those who spend their lives thinking about how to improve the systems and policies our society relies on, moments like this can also provoke change. We expect our governments to be improving our institutions all the time, not just when there is a horror story — and they often do, in ways that do not make headlines — but policy advocates understand the power of a "burning platform" to make reforms stick. This week, childcare advocate Georgie Dent of The Parenthood said leaders needed to go beyond steps already underway to improve screening and surveillance of staff and redesign the sector entirely. Dent's two priorities are an independent national regulator with the power to effectively force the closure of centres that do not meet minimum standards, and a new funding model where child care is provided directly like public schools, rather than subsidised. It is obvious how a national regulator relates to the failures exposed by this week's allegations — in fact, it may surprise many to learn that shutting down substandard childcare centres isn't already standard practice, and the federal government has work underway to change that. The relevance of funding may not be so obvious. But the financial model of Australian child care — where the federal government gives money to parents rather than operating centres itself — has long put it at arm's length from ensuring quality and safety. That is a challenge for the Albanese government, which has long aspired to make those subsidies universal but has limited oversight of what exactly it is subsidising. Our childcare system is built with "choice" at its centre. Rather than the government providing childcare services directly, it pays a subsidy to eligible parents, who choose from a range of providers, including for-profit and not-for-profit organisations. The logic is that high-quality services will naturally follow if parents are "empowered" to give their money to a good provider instead of a bad one. It's a hybrid system: demand is public, with the government paying for at least a portion of the cost of care, but supply is private, with providers competing with one another in a market for customers, and regulations often light-touch. Similar systems are today used for a range of services that were once directly provided by government, including aged care and vocational education, and for disability care through the NDIS. In-home aged care recipients have "packages", NDIS participants have "budgets" and trainees have "fee-free TAFE", all different names for subsidies allowing them to choose their preferred providers. But this choice "revolution", which has taken place in the last few decades, has its critics. Mark Considine, a politics professor at the University of Melbourne, calls it evidence of a "careless state". Though motivated by a desire to improve on often stale government service providers, Considine argues it became an excuse for governments to outsource quality assurance to those who use the services, who may lack the information to make informed choices. Sometimes there may not be much choice at all, like in Australia's childcare "deserts" where only a smattering of providers are available. But even where options are plenty, it is an open question whether those who rely on these services, who are often vulnerable and confronting complicated systems, are really equipped to sort good from bad. That is why Dent advocates the school model — schools being one of a few remaining services directly provided by (state and territory) governments, with hospitals another. "The way schools are funded is directly. Parents are not subsidised to send their children to schools," she said on Wednesday. "There is no accountability for the childcare subsidy … where taxpayers and the [federal] government are able to say that receiving this money is dependent on you meeting these minimum standards … "When we've got services that have almost got a business model around employing the fewest number of staff with the lowest number of qualifications, that creates extraordinary risk." The federal government has not indicated it intends to abolish the subsidy system, but it is considering how to improve regulatory oversight, with Education Minister Jason Clare vowing to deny subsidies to substandard providers in forthcoming legislation, something in train before the events of this week. The government is also considering how to improve training, pay and retention in the childcare workforce, and address childcare deserts. That trio of reforms was suggested by the Productivity Commission, which recommended retaining the subsidy system but also called for a national commission to better regulate quality, similar to Dent's other recommendation. It would be a similar approach to what has unfolded over the last few years in aged care, another sector where stories of neglect and abuse kickstarted a process of change. An Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission was set up in 2019 and has been accompanied by a star rating system to inform choices. A new "rights-based" framework for the system was also legislated last year but recently had its implementation delayed. The jury is out on these changes, and the ABC reported last year that five-star ratings were being handed out to aged care homes found not to be compliant with government standards. Direct provision of government services is no perfect guarantee of quality either, as we often see with schools and hospitals. But there is growing recognition, including from the government itself, that giving people "choice" in the services they access cannot come at the expense of strong oversight to give parents the confidence, no doubt shaken this week, that those choices are safe. If the government does press ahead with universal child care, which will require more providers and more workers, safeguarding quality will be essential.
ABC News
02-07-2025
- ABC News
Ministers are racing to close gaps in child safety left open for years
Ministers are racing to close gaps in Australia's child safety laws that have been left open for years, in the wake of another shocking case of alleged child abuse at a centre in Victoria. State and territory governments have responsibility for child protection and enforcement in childcare centres — but it is the Commonwealth that funds providers. That tension is again in question after a 26-year-old man was charged with dozens of child abuse offences at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook. It has reopened questions about gaps in Australia's laws, including how unsafe centres continue to receive funding, around how safety standards are enforced and around the systems monitoring workers — which remain a patchwork of rules a decade on from recommendations for reform. Education Minister Jason Clare has reaffirmed that the government is urgently progressing laws it announced in March to strip funding from childcare providers who repeatedly fail to meet their safety obligations. Meanwhile, work continues to ban personal mobile phones, improve monitoring and compliance and finally address the patchwork Working With Children Check system. But some educators say the system needs a fundamental rebuild — and a decade on from the child abuse royal commission, there are calls for another deep investigation into what is failing. Georgie Dent, chief executive at The Parenthood, says the early childhood sector needs a fundamental overhaul. Ms Dent says quality is closely linked with safety, and that ensuring highly qualified early educators is a necessary "vaccine" against predators. But with the Commonwealth funding providers and the states funding compliance, Ms Dent said failures often devolved into a blame game. "It is possible for the states to point to the Commonwealth government and say 'you should have done this', and it is possible for the Commonwealth government to point to the states and say 'you should have done this'. "The point is we have now got parents who have been notified that their small, vulnerable children have been put at incredible risk. They don't care who specifically is responsible for what part of the system." Ms Dent has repeated her call for an independent national childcare commission that could act as a watchdog. "Our quality framework is world-leading, but if it's not able to be implemented and enforced then it doesn't count," Ms Dent said. "When we have got services operating that don't meet the minimum standards and there is not an urgent intervention … that is a problem. Speaking to ABC Afternoon Briefing, national children's commissioner Anne Hollonds agreed that Australia needed a regulator with "teeth" that could properly enforce safety requirements in childcare facilities. Ms Dent said childcare centres should not receive funding if they were not meeting minimum standards — something the federal government was now developing to cut off "repeat offenders". The federal government in March announced it would legislate to cut off funding to childcare providers who repeatedly failed their safety and quality obligations. Mr Clare committed to passing the laws this year, saying they would not only remove funding from unsafe providers, but also prevent the expansion of providers if their existing centres were not meeting safety standards. "If services aren't up to scratch, that they aren't meeting safety and quality standards, we [will] have the power to cut funding off," Mr Clare said. Shadow Education Minister Jonno Duniam told the ABC the Coalition was willing to support whatever was needed to see those reforms passed "urgently". "Every measure must be considered, and any step taken to prevent this from happening again," Senator Duniam said. "We are yet to see the detail, and yes that is a very important part of this process, to make sure what is put on the table is adequate … but if it is about repeat offenders and centres that aren't meeting the mark when it comes to protecting our young, then there is no excuse. Repeat failure, there is no excuse for and no space for. With the legislation still being drafted, it is not clear what bar will be set for centres to be approved to receive funding, or what will be counted as "repeat" or egregious failures to see funding cut off. Those laws will also strengthen "market entry gateways" in the early childhood sector to deter providers with poor track records. Essentially, it will mean providers applying to receive Child Care Subsidy funding will have to prove that existing centres meet Australia's safety and quality standards — lifting the bar above the current expectation that providers are only "working towards" compliance. That would include proving adequate supervision, awareness of child protection responsibilities and that sufficient staffing arrangements are in place. Providers black-listed from operating in a sector would also be prevented from jumping to other parts of the care economy. But experts say the checks to detect unsafe providers remain flawed. The education minister accepted on Wednesday morning that it had taken too long to reform background safety checks on childcare workers, with recommendations made by royal commissioners a decade ago still not implemented. The Working With Children Check system is managed by states, and while a national database has been developed, the system remains a patchwork that doesn't perfectly share information across borders, including when violations are recorded. There also remains a lack of understanding among some educators about what they are required to report. A decade ago, royal commissioners recommended a national, harmonised system that was readily accessible to all states and territories, with enhanced and continuous monitoring. Those reforms have not been completed. Ms Dent said as it stood, there was a lack of clarity around federal and state governments, departments and agencies about who was responsible for the system, and that uncertainty allowed people to "slip through the cracks". A meeting of attorneys-general next month will progress reforms to the check, and federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland will write to her state counterparts this week to advise that those reforms be treated as a priority, with an expectation that it be progressed at their next meeting. Mr Clare said that was necessary work, but it could not be the only answer. "They're not the only thing we need to fix or reform here. They are not a silver bullet," he said. "There are too many examples where a perpetrator is eventually caught and arrested and sentenced [where] they are somebody who got a Working With Children Check because they had no prior criminal record." Victoria announced today it would fast-track work to establish an early educator register, similar to those that exist for school teachers, which would allow the movements of employees across providers to be tracked. A national register is being developed by federal, state and territory ministers, who have agreed to expedite it. Even before this week's disturbing revelations, Commonwealth, state and territory governments were progressing reforms in response to another case of widespread child abuse across multiple facilities that identified weaknesses in Australia's background check system and a number of other parts of the childcare sector. But as another crisis rocks the country, some states are again going their own way. A voluntary code was introduced last year to ban mobile phones in childcare centres as a stopgap, while governments pursued legislation to force a ban of personal devices — laws that Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan confirmed on Wednesday would be brought forward in that state. New South Wales said last week it was working urgently to strengthen its laws, including by establishing an independent regulator, based on a review by former ombudsman Chris Wheeler. Mr Clare says ministers are considering that review, including a recommendation to require CCTV to be installed in childcare centres that breach safety obligations and where the regulator holds safety concerns. "This is one of the things that ministers are looking at across the board as we develop nationwide reforms," Mr Clare said. NSW has given its in-principle support for CCTV laws, and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said the state would examine the use of CCTV as part of a snap review. Last week's meeting also agreed to changes that required mandatory reports of complaints of abuse to be made within 24 hours rather than seven days — and that systems would be upgraded to allow near-real-time updates of working with children concerns. But both the federal education minister and shadow education minister have rejected calls for another urgent national inquiry or royal commission, saying enough reviews had laid out what needs to change. Ms Dent says measures such as mobile phone bans are helpful, "but they are not adequate". "We don't need a reaction to the latest horror stories, we need systemic reform," Ms Dent said. She repeated her calls for how the sector was funded to be rebuilt — with centres funded directly and held accountable for that funding, like Australia's school system, rather than a subsidy paid to families. The national children's commissioner said the current system had failed families, and would continue to do so until governments made child safety a priority. "Why have we been so slow to get on with this?" Ms Hollonds asked. "In a way, because it is children, we haven't gotten on with it fast enough."
