Loopholes in national child safety reforms raise red flags about sex abuse risks

Blind spots and gaps in screening people who work with children will still exist despite wide-ranging national child safety reforms, which some say could leave vulnerable kids exposed to predators.

Experts say the reforms don’t go far enough and that parents should be able to search a person’s name to ensure they are cleared to work with children. However, that is not on the agenda.

Independent worker compliance and safeguarding platform Oho estimates that under current systems, about 27 per cent of people with working with children checks nationally are not continuously verified.

This masthead can reveal that at a childcare centre in Melbourne’s inner north, three workers were found to not have valid clearances in 2024.

Allegations of sex abuse in the childcare sector surfaced in the middle of last year after the discovery of a cache of child abuse material allegedly linked to Melbourne childcare worker and accused paedophile Joshua Brown in May sparked an urgent police investigation. Brown had worked at 24 centres across Melbourne over more than eight years.

Police have charged Brown, who had a valid working with children check until he was arrested, with 156 separate crimes, including child rape and sexually abusing at least 12 toddlers and babies under his care.

The allegations plunged Australia’s childcare sector into crisis, prompting widespread reforms by state and federal governments so that workers banned from working with children in one state or territory could be tracked nationwide. New powers will also allow spot checks at childcare centres.

However, Oho chief executive Liv Whitty argues the new measures do not address gaps between government and employer data sharing, nor allow real-time verification of workers.

Oho monitors 224,000 worker, carer and volunteer records and, since 2021, has done more than 14 million verifications through right-to-work screening for 140 organisations and employers. In that time it has detected 569 red flags – an average of seven alerts a week.

“In many organisations, safeguarding still depends on spreadsheets, one-off checks at 23 different registers and the hope that they’ll be notified if someone becomes unsuitable,” Whitty said.

“Current and proposed systems aren’t built to keep pace with the growth, churn and risk in care and education settings.”

According to Oho research, one in every 434 workers in the sector carries a critical safeguarding failure, such as a revoked clearance. As about 6 million Australians have the certification, that equates to thousands of unverified or unsuitable individuals working with children or vulnerable people.

In Victoria, workers with multiple employers can change their nominated employer without notification – meaning if they are suspended, other organisations they work or volunteer for might not know.

Principal lawyer of Astor Legal Avinash Singh said it should be easier for parents to check if someone had a valid working with children check and for detailed breaches to be published.

“There should be some sort of system where you can easily put someone’s name in and find out if they’ve got a working with children check or if they have any sort of breaches of regulations attached to their name or their organisation.”

“They have similar things for lawyers, for medical practitioners. There’s no reason why childcare educators shouldn’t be in that same group.”

This masthead obtained documents under freedom of information laws that revealed that Victoria’s childcare regulator issued Play House Family Day Care, in Preston, with an emergency action notice in February 2024 after finding two workers employed by the service did not have a current clearance to work with children.

‘They have similar things for lawyers, for medical practitioners. There’s no reason why childcare educators shouldn’t be in that group.’

Astor Legal principal lawyer Avinash Singh

The regulator, then known as the Quality Assessment and Regulation Division, reprimanded the operator after four workers were found not to have appropriate first aid qualifications; one worker was not following safe sleep practices; and five family day care educators were not properly insured.

The regulator required the operator to resolve the issues by March 14, 2024.

Play House Family Day Care closed August 2025 after repeatedly failing to meet national standards, including protecting children from harm or hazards.

The centre had previously failed at a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing to have the decision set aside pending a full review of the decision. The result meant the centre had to close at the end of the interim stay order on 3 October 2025. The matter is set to be heard by VCAT later this year.

In August, this masthead analysed 18 cases before VCAT and found inconsistent outcomes, including convicted child sex offenders and criminals retaining their approval to work with children on appeal despite the government working to bar them.

But the federal Working with Children Check Reform Taskforce’s first assistant secretary, Chris Collett, said the government wasn’t going to make holders of working with children checks publicly identifiable by name.

“It goes to a broader policy consideration about what is a working with children check and what is not,” he said.

“From a Commonwealth public policy point of view I’d be looking for a particular reason to change that.”

Collett said depending on the profession, the public could search to confirm whether a person held a valid check online. But that wasn’t possible for all professions.

This masthead recently tried to use the Services Victoria’s website to verify whether a childcare worker’s working with children check was valid without their associated card number. The request was denied for privacy reasons.

Advocates of the current system say both the worker’s name and card number should be required for a search given the number of duplicate names on the database.

Collett said the majority of the 6 million people authorised to work with children were registered as volunteers.

“For people in a voluntary capacity … I think it’s a different balance for us as a society,” he said.

“These are important debates we’ll need to keep having. What is it that we as our citizens expect of our community and of ourselves – but at this point of time it’s not a part of our agenda.”

QARD, which existed within the Victorian Education Department, was replaced by the independent Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority on January 1.

A spokesperson said the authority would not hesitate to take action against services that put children’s safety at risk and would use the full range of enforcement actions available.

A Victorian government spokesperson pointed to the child safety reforms passed in parliament last month which requires organisations to notify the social services regulator if a person’s employment or personal details change.

“Nothing is more important than the safety, welfare and well-being of our children,” the spokesperson said.

The federal government was contacted for comment.

For support, call Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 or 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732

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