As the public outcry from educators and parents intensifies in the wake of Four Corners investigation into Australia’s broken childcare system, the reluctance of senior politicians responsible for overseeing the sector to do something to fix it is striking.
While the federal Greens have joined the growing calls for a royal commission into the system, the prime minister’s response epitomised a serious flaw in the sector: a cycle of blame shifting between state and federal governments instead of real action.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged the Four Corners revelations, calling them “of deep concern,” but when pressed on the issue, he handballed responsibility to the states.
“State governments look after the regulation,” he said, adding “I’m sure that state governments will have a look at what has been revealed [on Four Corners].”
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A lack of political will
Next came Albanese’s swift rejection of the growing calls for a royal commission: “People call for royal commissions whenever anything comes out immediately. They take years, they cost a lot of money. You do not need a royal commission to show that what was shown on TV last night was wrong.”
Anne Aly, the federal minister responsible for childcare, came out on Tuesday afternoon and parroted similar talking points to Albanese’s but added that she had asked the head of the quality standards for childcare for ways to improve quality and safety in childcare.
This is less than the Productivity Commission recommended in a report released more than six months ago, which recommended an independent review of the National Quality Framework to improve assessment and quality ratings of childcare centres.
Under the current scheme all childcare centres must be rated, but 10 per cent have never been rated. And those that have been rated, on average, have not been reassessed for four years. Some centres in South Australia have not been re-assessed for up to nine years.
The report said the resources provided for regulators to carry out assessment and rating visits “do not seem to be sufficient to allow for the current number of operating services to be assessed in a reasonable time frame.”
In plain language, that means more funding is required to ensure the frequency of assessments is better than the current four yearly average.
The Productivity Commission also recommended the establishment of an independent childcare commission.
For mothers like Emily, whose child was sexually abused at childcare, the lack of interest in a royal commission or offering solutions to fix the system, is disappointing.
“You can’t be putting a price tag on children that can’t speak up for themselves,” she said.
“Money has got nothing to do with it. I’m sure everyone in Australia would be happy to put money towards a royal commission to help protect them.”
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‘It was all about profit’
Emily, whose identity is anonymised for legal reasons to protect her son, notified the childcare centre in Canberra immediately after her son told her what had happened to him, but, after three weeks without any response from the police, she contacted them herself.
It was only then that she learned the childcare centre had erased crucial CCTV footage — stored for only a short time before being overwritten. The only remaining evidence was 20 minutes of footage and a recording she had made of her son.
She said the centre was constantly churning staff. “It was all about profit,” she said.
When it comes to sexual misconduct and offences, at least one incident a day is reported in childcare centres in Victoria, WA and NSW. Only three states have reportable schemes, so it is likely to be far higher.
Workers have come out strongly, discussing on social media their experiences in childcare.
One says, “I would feel physically ill thinking about going to work. They only cared about profit and would make you go against everything you believed in or stood for. It broke me.”
Another recounted, “I know a child reported sexual assault (didn’t witness it), the centre barely investigated, threatened the parents and the educator still works there.”
Others voiced their frustration, “The regulators let it happen. “Profit and children don’t mix”.
Professor Allan Fels, eminent economist and former chair of the ACCC, said fast action and a royal commission to fix childcare were a must.
“State and federal governments are spending billions on grants and subsidies and an investment into a royal commission is nothing compared to the potential savings and better service from looking into the situation well,” he said.
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Reports of serious incidents missing
Four Corners exposed the corporatisation of Australia’s childcare sector, where profit often outweighs care.
Using national data, it revealed how the shift has come at the expense of quality.
In the past three years serious incidents have risen 27 per cent to 26,000, including serious injuries, trauma, ambulances called at childcare centres and children going missing or unaccounted for.
Given serious incidents are chronically under-reported, this is an alarming trend.
It coincides with the growing dominance of the for-profit sector, which now accounts for almost three quarters of long day care. Of the 300 to 400 new childcare centres opening each year, a staggering 95 per cent are for-profit.
The rise of for-profit operators coincides with increasing government subsidies to the sector. In the past year the federal government allocated more than $14 billion in childcare subsidies and state governments spent billions in grants.
This coupled with regulation that is not fit for purpose, is letting parents and their children down.
Former corporate lawyer and current NSW Greens politician Abigail Boyd has been trying to expose the industry’s secrets for months.
“Nobody wants people to know what’s actually going on,” Boyd says.
In November, Boyd invoked a Standing Order 52 (SO52) — a powerful parliamentary order to force the release of internal departmental documents to scrutinise the regulator’s handling of breaches in the childcare sector.
She requested incident reports detailing injuries, neglect, abuse, and safety hazards, along with the regulator’s responses.
“I wanted to see for myself exactly how effective the regulator was in making sure that these places were fit to send our children to.”
The department and government have been pushing back.
“It has been five months trying to get this information,” Boyd said.
“Other states make this information public.”
Tuesday afternoon Boyd passed a censure motion calling for the release of the documents.
The government now has 14 days now to comply and release the files or face further sanction.
Boyd has seen some of the documents, which are sitting in privilege boxes, and wants them released publicly.
“If the public had even the slightest idea of how horrendous these incidents are in a lot of these centres, there would be an absolute uproar. And they don’t wanna have to deal with that. They don’t wanna have to deal with the angry parents wanting to know why they weren’t told earlier that these things were happening at the places they’re leaving their children,” she said.
The brutal reality is there are good centres and good educators — but finding good quality care is getting harder.
It’s why a royal commission or public inquiry is important, to expose systemic failures, hold those responsible to account, and deliver enforceable recommendations for real reform.
Without it, we risk a continuation of motivated ignorance by governments to address the real problems.
