Victoria’s largest childcare chain repeatedly failed to protect children

Childcare giant G8 Education has repeatedly failed to protect Victorian children, with more than a dozen of its centres penalised by state authorities for posing serious safety risks to youngsters under the company’s care.

An investigation by this masthead has uncovered that despite the frequent government intervention, troubling safety breaches continued to occur across several of G8’s 11 sanctioned centres, including a child who was physically assaulted by an educator, a baby who was left alone strapped into an outdoor swing, and children escaping centres on busy roads.

The investigation can also reveal G8 – Victoria’s most sanctioned childcare provider, with almost one-tenth of its centres penalised since 2016 – has attempted to boost its reputation by running competitions for families to win prizes in exchange for positive online reviews, in a potential breach of consumer law.

Alleged childcare paedophile Joshua Brown worked at five G8 centres, including Creative Garden Point Cook, where police allege the 26-year-old sexually abused babies and toddlers.

The disturbing discoveries follow mounting concerns about the effectiveness of the state’s childcare watchdog, the Quality and Assessment Regulatory Division (QARD).

QARD, a unit within the Department of Education, has the power to penalise childcare services that fail to meet national standards, and must publish the actions – with a few exceptions – each year. Actions can range from suspensions to imposing conditions on the way the centres can provide care.

The government only makes sanctions from the past five years publicly available. This masthead was able to obtain the full record of public actions taken against the state’s childcare services, which date back to 2010, by using archival searches and data-scraping tools.

The full record revealed that, since 2016, the ASX-listed G8 Education has been repeatedly penalised for failing to protect children from harm, using inappropriate discipline, failing to supervise children and inappropriately interacting with children.

G8 dominates Victoria’s childcare sector, running 130 centres across the state. Its main competitor, Affinity Education, runs 52 centres – but has only received one sanction since 2010.

Parents across G8’s 11 penalised centres, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their children’s privacy, described dangerous incidents that have occurred even after government intervention.

A father arrived for afternoon pick-up to find his daughter, barely a year old, completely alone outside and fastened into a swing. Late last year, authorities were called after an educator allegedly physically assaulted a toddler.

A grandmother raced to one centre after learning her grandchild had escaped onto a busy road. At another centre, a passerby found two youngsters who had been left stranded outside in the rain for 15 minutes without anyone noticing they had gone missing.

The families accuse G8 of doing little to investigate the incidents, claiming staff would avoid writing reports or try to downplay what had happened.

One mother said she believed it was “painfully obvious” the childcare giant prioritised its reputation over providing adequate care. Another said there were “wonderful” staff who tried to improve their centre but were let down by a lack of support and little resources.

G8 has run contests at centres that offer prizes to families who post reviews on both Google and childcare review platform Care for Kids. Emails spruiking the competitions, obtained by this masthead, include step-by-step instructions on how to write the reviews.

“Google is one of the highest traffic areas for where we get our families from and by having your support it will continue to support the positive word of mouth which turns into Centre growth,” said one email sent to parents, which offered a hamper prize.

It is illegal for businesses to offer any sort of incentive in exchange for reviews without disclosing the offer.

The ‘watchdog without teeth’

In June 2024, a toddler self-reported to his mother, Kate*, that an educator at Creative Garden Wallan had, on several occasions, taken him to the toilet, pulled down his pants and smacked his bottom.

“She does that when she doesn’t like me or when I’m naughty,” Kate’s son told her. The boy later told a pyschologist that the educator smacked other children.

Kate said the discovery was shocking for her, but her son’s recent change in behaviour also began to make sense.

“He didn’t want to go to childcare, he would lock himself in the house, he would hold onto the car door. He would cry, kick, scream. He went backwards for toileting. He was scared to walk into the toilet. Every time we would drive past the centre, he’d scream and try to undo his seatbelt,” Kate told The Age.

Kate said that the same day she learnt of the alleged incident, she drove to the childcare centre, removed her two children from enrolment and reported the allegation to G8, police, the Department of Education and the Commissioner of Children and Young People.

‘Every time we would drive past the centre, he’d scream and try to undo his seatbelt.’

Kate (not her real name) on her son after an educator allegedly smacked him

G8 also reported the alleged incident to authorities but did not suspend the educator, who remained employed at the centre while an investigation was ongoing.

“I had to chase everybody,” Kate said. This masthead has seen detailed notes the mother recorded, including follow-up phone calls, emails and texts made to the centre that went unanswered for months.

Sexual crime squad detectives never followed up with Kate’s complaint, and G8’s internal investigation found no fault.

The Department of Education also eventually closed its investigation in March, and told Kate it could not substantiate the allegations because the educator denied the offending and there were no other witnesses. The educator remained employed at the centre.

What Kate didn’t know is that Creative Garden Wallan had repeatedly failed national standards, and was penalised by state authorities in 2016 and in 2021.

But the mother wasn’t surprised. “When a child hurt themselves, or something happened to a child, the educators wouldn’t report it,” Kate claimed.

Parents at Kindy Patch Chelsea were also unaware the government had sanctioned the centre for its continued inability to care for children.

A mother pulled her children out of the centre in 2023 after she became increasingly worried by the level of care, which included educators administering the wrong medication to her children and poor supervision, which led to another child ripping out a chunk of her daughter’s hair.

“It is disheartening, you send your kids to be safe to be looked after, and not to have a multitude of issues every single day,” the mother said. “I’m not doing this, I’m not putting my kid through more or less hell.”

QARD first penalised Kindy Patch Chelsea in 2019 for failing to discipline children appropriately, and for not disclosing information to the watchdog. In 2021, the centre was sanctioned again for failing to protect children from harm, inadequate supervision and for not following the correct educational program.

“Most centres you don’t walk into and hear a lot of kids upset. That was the issue at Kindy Patch – you would hear a lot of the kids crying the second you walked in,” the mother said.

Other parents described a centre that had a high turnover of staff, illegal staff-to-baby ratios and inadequate training. One mother immediately pulled her son out of care after overhearing an educator yelling aggressively at her baby, who was barely a year old.

“The kinder program was a joke. There was not a qualified kinder teaching running it half the time,” one parent said.

The raft of concerning allegations add to the mounting worry that QARD is ill-equipped, under-resourced and unable to do its job. Last week this masthead revealed that the watchdog knew a childcare centre in Springvale was illegally operating but couldn’t shut it down.

Premier Jacinta Allan has dodged questions about the childcare regulator, excluded QARD from the government’s recently launched review of the childcare sector, and defied a parliamentary order to table thousands of documents about QARD’s enforcement action.

Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said the government must establish an independent authority, and slammed QARD as a “watchdog without teeth” that was failing to keep children safe.

Anasina Gray-Barberio, the Victorian Greens’ spokeswoman for early childhood, accused the government of trying to shield itself from scrutiny. “Labor keeps pointing to their so-called review like it’s some kind of silver bullet – a review that doesn’t even look at this regulator that’s clearly deeply failing,” she said.

The Department of Education and Minister for Children Lizzie Blandthorn declined to respond to detailed questions sent by this masthead, citing privacy reasons.

Instead, a government spokesperson said QARD did 4729 checks on early childhood services in 2024, which was “well above its target”. The allegations were “sickening”, the spokesperson said, and the government would do “everything in its power” to ensure children are safe.

“That’s why we have commissioned an urgent review into child safety in early childhood education and care settings,” the spokesperson said.

G8 Education also refused to respond to detailed questions, but a spokesperson said the company took child protection and safeguarding “extremely seriously”.

“All team members are required to adhere to the organisation’s policies and procedures, including the organisation’s code of conduct. G8 Education has zero tolerance for any behaviour that compromises the safety or wellbeing of children or is unlawful,” the spokesperson said.

Kate, who feels repeatedly failed by authorities, said she was left with no other option but to speak out. “I’m not going to sit here and fail my child while you are failing children in your care,” she said of the company.

*Not her real name

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