Ministers are racing to close gaps in child safety left open for years | #childsafety | #kids | #chldern | #parents | #schoolsafey

Ministers are racing to close gaps in Australia’s child safety laws that have been left open for years, in the wake of another shocking case of alleged child abuse at a centre in Victoria.

State and territory governments have responsibility for child protection and enforcement in childcare centres — but it is the Commonwealth that funds providers.

That tension is again in question after a 26-year-old man was charged with dozens of child abuse offences at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook.

It has reopened questions about gaps in Australia’s laws, including how unsafe centres continue to receive funding, around how safety standards are enforced and around the systems monitoring workers — which remain a patchwork of rules a decade on from recommendations for reform.

Education Minister Jason Clare has reaffirmed that the government is urgently progressing laws it announced in March to strip funding from childcare providers who repeatedly fail to meet their safety obligations.

Meanwhile, work continues to ban personal mobile phones, improve monitoring and compliance and finally address the patchwork Working With Children Check system.

But some educators say the system needs a fundamental rebuild — and a decade on from the child abuse royal commission, there are calls for another deep investigation into what is failing.

Sector needs a ‘vaccine’ against predators

Georgie Dent, chief executive at The Parenthood, says the early childhood sector needs a fundamental overhaul.

Ms Dent says quality is closely linked with safety, and that ensuring highly qualified early educators is a necessary “vaccine” against predators.

But with the Commonwealth funding providers and the states funding compliance, Ms Dent said failures often devolved into a blame game.

“It is possible for the states to point to the Commonwealth government and say ‘you should have done this’, and it is possible for the Commonwealth government to point to the states and say ‘you should have done this’.

“The point is we have now got parents who have been notified that their small, vulnerable children have been put at incredible risk. They don’t care who specifically is responsible for what part of the system.”

Ms Dent has repeated her call for an independent national childcare commission that could act as a watchdog.

“Our quality framework is world-leading, but if it’s not able to be implemented and enforced then it doesn’t count,” Ms Dent said.

“When we have got services operating that don’t meet the minimum standards and there is not an urgent intervention … that is a problem.

Speaking to ABC Afternoon Briefing, national children’s commissioner Anne Hollonds agreed that Australia needed a regulator with “teeth” that could properly enforce safety requirements in childcare facilities.

Ms Dent said childcare centres should not receive funding if they were not meeting minimum standards — something the federal government was now developing to cut off “repeat offenders”.

Laws being drafted to cut off ‘repeat offender’ providers

The federal government in March announced it would legislate to cut off funding to childcare providers who repeatedly failed their safety and quality obligations.

Mr Clare committed to passing the laws this year, saying they would not only remove funding from unsafe providers, but also prevent the expansion of providers if their existing centres were not meeting safety standards.

“If services aren’t up to scratch, that they aren’t meeting safety and quality standards, we [will] have the power to cut funding off,” Mr Clare said.

Shadow Education Minister Jonno Duniam told the ABC the Coalition was willing to support whatever was needed to see those reforms passed “urgently”.

“Every measure must be considered, and any step taken to prevent this from happening again,” Senator Duniam said.

“We are yet to see the detail, and yes that is a very important part of this process, to make sure what is put on the table is adequate … but if it is about repeat offenders and centres that aren’t meeting the mark when it comes to protecting our young, then there is no excuse. Repeat failure, there is no excuse for and no space for.

With the legislation still being drafted, it is not clear what bar will be set for centres to be approved to receive funding, or what will be counted as “repeat” or egregious failures to see funding cut off.

Those laws will also strengthen “market entry gateways” in the early childhood sector to deter providers with poor track records.

Essentially, it will mean providers applying to receive Child Care Subsidy funding will have to prove that existing centres meet Australia’s safety and quality standards — lifting the bar above the current expectation that providers are only “working towards” compliance.

That would include proving adequate supervision, awareness of child protection responsibilities and that sufficient staffing arrangements are in place.

Providers black-listed from operating in a sector would also be prevented from jumping to other parts of the care economy.

Gaps in compliance

But experts say the checks to detect unsafe providers remain flawed.

The education minister accepted on Wednesday morning that it had taken too long to reform background safety checks on childcare workers, with recommendations made by royal commissioners a decade ago still not implemented.

The Working With Children Check system is managed by states, and while a national database has been developed, the system remains a patchwork that doesn’t perfectly share information across borders, including when violations are recorded.

There also remains a lack of understanding among some educators about what they are required to report.

A decade ago, royal commissioners recommended a national, harmonised system that was readily accessible to all states and territories, with enhanced and continuous monitoring.

Those reforms have not been completed.

Ms Dent said as it stood, there was a lack of clarity around federal and state governments, departments and agencies about who was responsible for the system, and that uncertainty allowed people to “slip through the cracks”.

A meeting of attorneys-general next month will progress reforms to the check, and federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland will write to her state counterparts this week to advise that those reforms be treated as a priority, with an expectation that it be progressed at their next meeting.

Mr Clare said that was necessary work, but it could not be the only answer.

“They’re not the only thing we need to fix or reform here. They are not a silver bullet,” he said.

“There are too many examples where a perpetrator is eventually caught and arrested and sentenced [where] they are somebody who got a Working With Children Check because they had no prior criminal record.”

Victoria announced today it would fast-track work to establish an early educator register, similar to those that exist for school teachers, which would allow the movements of employees across providers to be tracked.

A national register is being developed by federal, state and territory ministers, who have agreed to expedite it.

‘A moment of reckoning’

Even before this week’s disturbing revelations, Commonwealth, state and territory governments were progressing reforms in response to another case of widespread child abuse across multiple facilities that identified weaknesses in Australia’s background check system and a number of other parts of the childcare sector.

But as another crisis rocks the country, some states are again going their own way.

A voluntary code was introduced last year to ban mobile phones in childcare centres as a stopgap, while governments pursued legislation to force a ban of personal devices — laws that Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan confirmed on Wednesday would be brought forward in that state.

New South Wales said last week it was working urgently to strengthen its laws, including by establishing an independent regulator, based on a review by former ombudsman Chris Wheeler.

Mr Clare says ministers are considering that review, including a recommendation to require CCTV to be installed in childcare centres that breach safety obligations and where the regulator holds safety concerns.

“This is one of the things that ministers are looking at across the board as we develop nationwide reforms,” Mr Clare said.

NSW has given its in-principle support for CCTV laws, and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said the state would examine the use of CCTV as part of a snap review.

Last week’s meeting also agreed to changes that required mandatory reports of complaints of abuse to be made within 24 hours rather than seven days — and that systems would be upgraded to allow near-real-time updates of working with children concerns.

But both the federal education minister and shadow education minister have rejected calls for another urgent national inquiry or royal commission, saying enough reviews had laid out what needs to change.

Ms Dent says measures such as mobile phone bans are helpful, “but they are not adequate”.

“We don’t need a reaction to the latest horror stories, we need systemic reform,” Ms Dent said.

She repeated her calls for how the sector was funded to be rebuilt — with centres funded directly and held accountable for that funding, like Australia’s school system, rather than a subsidy paid to families.

The national children’s commissioner said the current system had failed families, and would continue to do so until governments made child safety a priority.

“Why have we been so slow to get on with this?” Ms Hollonds asked.

“In a way, because it is children, we haven’t gotten on with it fast enough.”