Children cannot advocate for themselves, so we must

When a baby girl called Nanicha died at an illegal childcare centre in Robinvale, in Victoria’s north-west, in January 2022, it didn’t make headlines. But we should have been paying attention.

In September of that year, the state’s ombudsman concluded that there were flaws in Victoria’s working with children scheme and that “for the safety of our children, more needs to be done”. Again, there were expressions of concern, but our focus soon moved elsewhere.

It is now just over three months since it emerged that as many as 1200 children may have been allegedly abused by childcare centre worker Joshua Dale Brown, and the harshest spotlight was thrown on a sector that is so pivotal to family and working life across this country. That spotlight has uncovered cases like baby Nanicha’s – who, the ABC reported, died after being put to bed in an unsafe environment – with journalists prising appalling facts from government departments under freedom of information requests or from leaked documents.

This week, our reporter Carla Jaeger revealed that childcare giant Affinity Education had withheld for weeks information about the safety of two children from detectives investigating the Brown case. That came hard on the heels of education reporter Nicole Precel’s article on a growing black market in the sector.

It should not be this way. As Phil Doorgachurn, director of safeguarding at the Australian Childhood Foundation, told us: “This is not like selling a product on Marketplace, we are talking about the wellbeing of children.”

That fact places two demands on us. The first is, as Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell has said, there must be an “independent regulator with teeth”. The second is that the results of that regulation must be transparent and available to families using childcare as well as the wider public.

We cannot and must not accept a future where the regulator, having uncovered serious non-compliance with safety regulations at a childcare centre, takes a year to launch an investigation, and in which the centre in question continues operating for more than a month after a suspension notice is issued.

After a parliamentary order compelled the New South Wales government to divulge details of cases brought before their state’s childcare regulator, thousands of pages of evidence were produced. But a similar order in Victoria, giving Jacinta Allan’s government until July 18 to comply, has yet to result in the release of any material. It is simply not good enough. Children are the ones who need protection, not the reputations of the regulator, the government or rogue operators in the sector.

As alarming cases of mistreatment and neglect continue coming to light, the situation may seem overwhelming. But children cannot advocate for themselves, so we must.

Responding to the “rapid review” it instituted following the Brown scandal, the Allan government put the onus on the federal government to institute a national register of workers in the sector and to “rethink ... the ECEC [early childhood, education and care] system”. But it also committed to a raft of state measures to improve information-sharing both between agencies and with parents, and to establish an independent regulator with stronger powers and more frequent inspections.

Much of the legislation connected with these commitments is scheduled to reach parliament this month. It will be a first test of whether we are finally serious about reform. Is one unannounced annual spot-check by the regulator, for example, really adequate regulation for centres when we are talking about children?

For lasting and effective change, questions will have to be asked about the role of for-profit businesses – some of them owned by private equity firms – in this sector, where they now provide the bulk of care and receive guaranteed government subsidies.

There is an obvious tension between talk of child safety as a top priority and one missive to staff at a major childcare provider that “our goal is to enrol”. The result is an environment where parents feel image management too often trumps child welfare.

A focus on profitability affects the quality and continuity of staffing at centres. Yet, such quality is essential to keeping children safe. It is widely accepted that not-for-profit providers have a better record in this area, but this in turn raises issues of access and affordability.

When Allan’s predecessor, Daniel Andrews, announced the creation of 50 government-run childcare centres in 2022, it soon became clear that those areas in greatest need were at risk of missing out. Problems over cost, a desire for services that speak parents’ language and the refusal of some parents to vaccinate their children have led to a rash of cheaper but unregulated providers. Any new regime will have to address these issues too.

The Victorian government’s in-depth inquiry will be receiving submissions until the end of next month, and its findings are likely to be revealed next year. But before then, we must see an end to buck-passing between Canberra and Spring Street and a concerted effort to do better. After the Brown case, any failures that occur are on all governments – and us if we fail to act.

We shouldn’t have to wait for the next allegation of abuse – or the next family to lose their child.

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