‘You could have saved children’: Sunrise host slams politicians over childcare

Sunrise host Nat Barr has erupted in a fiery clash with the leader of the Liberal Party in the wake of an alleged child abuse case that has rocked the nation.

Sunrise host Natalie Bar has slammed political leaders for failing to act faster on childcare safety, confronting Liberal leader Sussan Ley with a devastating question.

In the wake of shocking allegations of child sex abuse in childcare centres, political leaders have admitted that reforms to boost safety haven’t been enacted fast enough.

The 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made 409 recommendations to improve child safety and responses to child sexual abuse, including in childcare settings.

Accused pedophile Joshua Dale Brown. Picture: 9News

These recommendations covered areas like record keeping, mandatory reporting and the need for accurate records related to child safety and wellbeing, and for institutions to retain these records for at least 45 years.

In the wake of the latest allegations the Victorian government also unveiled its own reforms, which include a register of childcare workers and educators, a ban on personal mobile phones in centres and mandatory CCTV.

But as Liberal leader Sussan Ley offered her bipartisan support to the Albanese government to fast track new reforms, Barr grilled her on why successive governments had failed to act, including when Ms Ley was a cabinet minister.

Opposition leader Sussan Ley. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

“You had a chance to save children. What did you do?” Barr asked on Monday morning’s program.

She noted that the 2017 Royal Commission made specific recommendations to improve safety including some that still had not been fully implemented.

“It’s not about the blame game,” she said.

“But in 2017, the government you were in was handed a report. It took five years to do. There were 8000 sessions. It cost this country, these taxpayers nearly $400 million. The recommendations were [for] a national working with children scheme, a national office, there was a register of childcare workers, then for five years the government did what?”

Milestones, one of the centres where Mr Brown worked. Picture: Aaron Francis/NCA NewsWire

In response, Ms Ley said what the government did was “progress those reforms with the states”.

“So you are blaming the states?” Barr said.

But Ms Ley insisted she was not trying to avoid responsibility.

“I’m not blaming the states,” she said.

“The recommendations took a couple of years to come down. We started the work. Labor came in and picked it up. I am recognising governments own a lot of this. For example, the Victorian state government has, if I can describe them as weaker working with children checks than any other states.”

Ashley Paul Griffith was handed a life sentence. Picture: Supplied

Australia’s worst pedophile

When Queensland childcare worker Ashley Paul Griffith was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing 73 young girls in Brisbane, an interim report warned how the current system “may result in a false sense of security”.

The man dubbed perhaps Australia’s worst pedophile had “met all requirements to obtain and maintain a Blue Card” — the state’s working with children check system — until his arrest on 1623 charges of child abuse.

“The Blue Card system is not designed to collect information on early indicators of harm or to identify patterns over time and across organisations, particularly where complaints about a person have been investigated and found to be unsubstantiated due to a lack of evidence,” the report said.

The implementation of a reportable conduct scheme in Queensland will commence in 2026 and it is hoped will improve the collation and sharing of this type of information.

This month, another childcare worker, Joshua Dale Brown, was accused of sexually abusing children in Victoria by police.

The childcare worker has been charged but is yet to face trial.

The 26-year-old is accused of abusing eight young children between April 2022 and January 2023 and his work at 20 centres across Victoria has sparked the testing of more than 1200 children for sexually transmitted infections out of “an abundance of caution”.

Originally published as ‘You could have saved children’: Sunrise host slams politicians over childcare