‘Such a joke’: Parents, experts lash ‘insulting’ childcare fix
Furious parents and experts have slammed the report promising to overhaul Victoria’s troubled childcare system, saying changes are needed now – not in three months.
Angry parents and peak bodies have slammed a new report promising to overhaul Victoria’s troubled childcare system, with one mum calling the recommendations a “joke”.
The Rapid Child Safety Review — made public on Wednesday, five days after being delivered to government — called for a sweeping overhaul to the state’s childcare regime.
This included establishing a new independent regulator, increasing funding, and closing gaping loopholes within the Working With Children Check regime that have allowed child predators unfettered access to children.
Melody Glaister, whose six-year-old daughter was one of thousands of children tested for sexually transmitted infections after accused pedophile Joshua Brown was charged, urged the government to make the changes now and not in three months.
“It’s such a joke,” she said.
“The fact that they knew the system was deeply flawed three years ago and did nothing is an insult to the children and parents that have been impacted by the recent allegations of abuse across Victoria.
“The changes need to be implemented now, not in three months.
“How many more children have to be failed by a system that is supposed to protect them?”.
Mr Brown offered private babysitting services to Ms Glaister’s daughter – then aged three – while employed at Creative Garden Point Cook in 2022.
Ms Glaister’s partner, Hayden Glaister, said he was “absolutely gutted and furious” while reading the report.
“I clung to some hope that it would force real, immediate change to protect our children and hold the system accountable for failing us so badly,” he said.
“But instead, it feels like a bunch of bureaucratic hand-wringing and finger-pointing that kicks the can down the road.
“The fact that they held on to the review in order to prepare their response, in my view, just shows that they were more concerned with their own optics than the children and families that have been affected.”
Mr Glaister said the review “danced around the actual horrors that happened without digging into why alleged predators like Brown could bounce around 23 different childcare centres over years”.
“This review feels like a PR exercise — full of tables and timelines that sound good on paper but do nothing to heal the betrayal or prevent the next nightmare,” he said.
“We parents deserve better than more committees, bureaucratic nonsense and calls for federal help.”
Mr Glaister said he couldn’t leave his daughter in the care of others without suffering from anxiety.
“I trusted these places with my child’s life,” he said.
“I still wake up in the middle of the night worried even when I know my daughter is sound asleep down the hall.
“There are families that have been shattered by what has happened and this review, such as it is, comes too little too late and in my opinion is unlikely to affect substantial change in the near future.”
Experts say findings are ‘nothing new’
Experts were also critical of the report, highlighting the findings were “nothing new”.
While Australian Catholic University Institute of Child Protection Studies Director Professor Daryl Higgins was more welcoming of the review, he said it was “disappointing that it took such high-profile horrific incidents of abuse involving vulnerable children for the spotlight to finally be shone on these long-running safety gaps in early childhood education and care”.
“These findings do not tell us anything new and we simply cannot go back to the status quo once the media headlines have disappeared,” he said.
“We need to match the strong verbal commitments of the Victorian government today with real and urgent action to implement these recommendations – recommendations which follow similar calls by the Royal Commission and former Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass.”
Professor Higgins – who was a key voice in News Corp’s Keep Them Safe campaign and is a long-time child safeguarding advocate – said the report’s public release should mark the
first day of a new system of early childhood education and care “that without question prioritises child safeguarding”.
“I welcome the commitments to strengthening the seriously flawed Working With Children System, better information sharing between regulatory bodies and service providers, a register of workers, and greater supports and training for early childhood education and care staff as these improvements are vital to stop predators from continuing to abuse children under the radar,” he said.
“However, we’ve been here before. This time, swift action must follow to restore faith in the system and, above all else, protect children.”
Premier Jacinta Allan announced the snap review on July 2 after Mr Brown was charged with more than 70 offences relating to child sexual assault.
The childcare worker was accused of committing child sex offences against eight children aged between five months to two years old at Creative Garden Point Cook centre where he worked between October 2021 and February 2024.
Other charges against the 26-year-old included sexual penetration of a child under 12, intentionally sexually touching a child, producing child abuse material and engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.
Mr Brown was also accused of using bodily fluids to tamper with food.
Fears over ‘number of failings’ in system
Legal representatives also weighed in on the report’s findings and recommendations, with Arnold Thomas & Becker principal Jodie Harris — who is representing several families whose children were allegedly abused by Mr Brown — sharing her concern about the “number of failings” found across the system.
“The review has revealed that Victoria’s childcare watchdogs are failing to keep kids safe due to an inadequate working with children system, poor information sharing, woeful underfunding and a system that places the privacy of educators and the pursuit of profits over child safety,” she said.
“We are supportive of the recommendations made but are concerned at the number of failings across the system which have meant that a predator has been able to exploit these gaps and have access to so many children over a long period of time.”
Ms Harris said one of the most damning findings of the report was Victoria’s Working with Children Check laws were “not fit-for-purpose and must be rebalanced”.
“Families impacted by the allegations of abuse in the various centres will be devastated by the findings of this review,” she said.
“They will have trusted the regulators to provide a safe place for their children, yet this report reveals that the system and its watchdog has failed them.”
Carbone Lawyers managing partner Tony Carbone, who also has clients who have also been caught up in the Joshua Brown allegations, said the review was reporting on matters that “are basic common sense”.
“The report is a lot of talk with a lack of affirmative and proper action, to protect vulnerable children” he said.
“A lot of these changes that have been recommended were identified by former Ombudsman Deborah Glass three years ago.
“The government needs to stop dancing around the campfire and needs to take real and affirmative action which the aforementioned points would address.”
Mr Carbone worried a national system would take “significant time and money to implement” and said there was no reason why CCTV cameras couldn’t be rolled out across all early learning centres.
“There should be a register of each early childcare worker that each and every childcare centre can access and this would make it easier to identify why they left their former employers and not be blindsided by not having available important information when employing these workers,” he said.
“What is more important, the safety of vulnerable children or the privacy of an early childcare worker?”
The Early Learning Association of Australia took a more neutral stance.
While the organisation welcomed the 22 recommendations, chief Dr Karina Davis cautioned many of them were dependent on the Commonwealth and there were gaps in how others would be funded.
“There are great initiatives in the review, including the ‘four eyes’ consideration that ensures two
adults are visible to each other while with children,” she said.
“However, the key recommendations that will have a big impact and increase children’s safety rely on the Commonwealth government also advocating for and prioritising these changes.”
But some experts welcomed the review.
United Workers Union welcomes reforms
The findings from the Allan government’s rapid review have gained the support of “thousands of United Workers Union educators”, according to the union’s early education director Carolyn Smith.
The union welcomed reforms that would see overall staffing levels increase, following an over-reliance on trainees and staffing loopholes.
It also supported a move towards stronger Working with Children Check guardrails, a strengthened register that detailed staff members’ employment histories and a new early childhood regulator.
“Thousands of United Workers Union educators will support the findings of the Allan Labor Government’s rapid review of the early education sector because its recommendations will make children safer,” Ms Smith said.
Australian Childhood Foundation chief Janise Mitchell welcomed Wednesday’s announcement and was pleased to learn child abuse prevention training in the Working with Children Check (WWCC) will become immediately mandatory.
“The WWCC has not been fit for purpose for a long time ... It is critical we stop the WWCC from being used as a passport for perpetrators to manipulate the system,” she said.
“High quality mandatory training at the point of application for a WWCC will strengthen the perimeter of protection for children and young people.
“We look forward to working with the government to ensure that it is not another box ticking exercise and will equip people with the knowledge they need to prevent child abuse.”
Colleague Emma Hakansson, who is the campaign lead and a survivor advocate, added: “survivors like myself have been pushing for mandatory child abuse prevention training in the WWCC for a long time, we pushed for this campaign in the Victorian parliament early last year and now we have been heard — even if it shouldn’t have taken so many more cases of children abused in care for that to happen.”
Originally published as ‘Such a joke’: Parents, experts lash ‘insulting’ childcare fix
