The ‘fragmented’ and costly rules putting our most vulnerable at risk

People caring for children, the elderly, veterans and the disabled would face a national screening system within three years under a plan to protect the country’s most vulnerable while slashing expensive red tape that is preventing potential workers from moving into the care economy.

Under a proposal from the Productivity Commission, businesses operating in the aged care, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, veterans’ care and early childhood sectors would also face a single, national set of quality standards that would make it easier to track poor operators.

The federal government is already planning to create a national database of childcare workers after a Victorian man was charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight children aged between five months and two years at a childcare centre in Melbourne.

But the commission, in its fifth report before next week’s federal government roundtable, argues all areas in which people are required to care for others should be covered by a nationally consistent screening system.

More than 2 million people are employed in caring roles, and states and territories have differing regulations.

Commissioner Martin Stokie said a single approach that covered both workers and businesses would help protect those in care and reduce red tape, which was hitting productivity in one of the fastest-growing parts of the economy.

“Fragmented regulation across the care sector reduces productivity, heightens the risk of harms, limits access to care and creates unnecessary burdens for care providers,” he said.

The commission found “duplicative, fragmented and inefficient” red tape imposed a large cost on care workers, 79 per cent of whom were women. This can include separate screening processes across different sectors, such as aged care and childcare.

It said effective worker screening was needed to protect the vulnerable, noting that a fragmented system meant “unsafe workers slip through the cracks unnoticed”.

A national worker screening system would cover existing protections such as aged care police checks, NDIS worker screening and working-with-children state-based regulations.

The commission also said that a single monitoring approach for businesses should be put in place within three years to provide accreditation, registration and audits.

This follows growing evidence that businesses are being created to exploit weaknesses in growth areas of the care economy, particularly the NDIS.

The commission said running separate regulatory agencies for different parts of the care sector reduced the funds available for those in care who had to “wait longer, miss out or receive a lower-quality service”.

“Current differences in regulation go beyond what is justified by the differences across sectors, meaning that there is real scope to streamline regulation without sacrificing outcomes (and indeed while improving outcomes in some cases),” it found.

The commission has also urged the federal government to lead a national approach to invest in preventative care programs, arguing a 10 per cent reduction in potentially preventable hospital cases could save governments $600 million a year.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.