Forget knee-jerk measures – parents know the change needed for safer childcare

Australians absorbed the brutal news this month that a Melbourne childcare worker had been charged with more than 70 offences, including sexual assault and producing child abuse material. Over nine years, the man worked at as many as 20 childcare centres, and his alleged victims were aged between five months and two years old.

At first, I took in this news like everyone – confused and frustrated by how an alleged crime of this scale and violence could pass through our community seemingly unnoticed for so long.

if we want better childcare, staff need to be treated better.Credit: Justin McManus

Then I processed it as a parent and asked the unavoidable questions: What if these allegations related to my child? Could this happen to her?

Finally, I absorbed it as a client. My daughter attends a small, caring childcare centre four days a week. During that time, she’s looked after by a group of women I’ve come to know and trust deeply. She has been in care since she was five months old. Not because I wanted her to be, but because like many parents, financial pressures meant I had to return to work as soon as I could.

Towards the end of my maternity leave and throughout her early months in care, I was racked with guilt, grief and anger. I felt like a failure for having built a life that required me to prise my crying baby from my chest each day so that I could serve businesses I didn’t care about, just to pay a mortgage that interest rates meant I could hardly afford. One of the few sources of comfort during those early months came from the women who work at the childcare centre my daughter attends. I trusted that they cared about her, and me. Often they would point to their own screaming children in neighbouring rooms and say “I get it” as they prised her from my arms. And they do get it. But I’m not always sure their bosses do.

While having a community feel, the centre is part of an ASX-listed conglomerate that runs more than 430 childcare centres nationwide – one of which the alleged offender worked at. In 2024, the company reported $1 billion in revenue and an after-tax profit of $67.7 million. Those numbers probably affected what happened next.

A few days after the allegations came to light, perhaps sensing my fear and instinct to quit my job and never let my child out of sight again, I received an email from my daughter’s centre. It was written by the managers – two women whose own children attend rooms that neighbour my daughter’s. As they’ve done many times, they shared their own experiences of modern and often scary parenting, this time expressing personal anguish and confusion and offering support pathways to parents, including links to counselling services and resources on talking to children about consent.

A few hours later, the centre’s head office sent another email. In a distinctly corporate tone, an unfamiliar author sought to assure me that safety and wellbeing were the company’s highest priorities. They spoke vaguely of training, “secure environments” and “cybersecurity measures”.

This includes a fast-tracked trial of CCTV in centres, despite experts warning strongly against systems that record children undressing or using the toilet, and particularly after hackers accessed footage from childcare centres and schools in 2021. When I replied to the email asking how the footage would be managed, they couldn’t offer concrete answers – just a vague commitment to “transparency” and “best practice” data protection.

Another quick-fix measure is offering parents “more choice” over who can oversee issues such as nappy changes or using the toilet. Again, there was no clarity on how this could work in practice.

But perhaps the most frustrating thing about these suggestions, no matter how well meaning, is that they ignore the obvious: if we want better childcare, staff need to be treated better.

It’s no secret that the Australian childcare sector has been in crisis for years. Investigations have shown children are regularly put at risk due to understaffing and widespread training gaps in first aid, child protection and hygiene.

These failings are overwhelmingly not due to the workers themselves; they simply reflect what happens when the focus shifts from care to profit. This is what happens when so many corners are cut that hiring and retaining quality staff becomes a constant uphill battle, and high turnover becomes inevitable.

Today, more than 70 per cent of centres are for-profit, and as a whole, the Australian childcare sector is now worth more than $20 billion annually. Despite this financial boom, most childcare workers earn less on average than retail employees.

Instead of addressing the most obvious problem (that early education is a tough, often thankless job), patch-up solutions such as fast-tracked courses that don’t provide adequate training or screening are offered.

The impact of those cuts is visible now. But even before this story, childcare workers were sounding the alarm. Last week, a United Workers Union survey found that 42 per cent of centres were running below legal minimum staffing levels. In these conditions, it’s incredibly hard for staff to provide the level of care children need, and properly monitoring these spaces becomes increasingly difficult.

If childcare workers were better paid, properly respected and adequately resourced, more people would want to do it. Centres would be able to let go of unsuitable staff without worrying they couldn’t replace them.

Not surprisingly, the email from the ASX-listed company mentioned none of this. Despite all the language about care and commitment, the reality is that in 2025, childcare remains a profit-driven industry. For as long as there are tens of billions of dollars to be made, that will be the priority.

Today, I sent my child to care as usual. Not because I wanted to, but because there was no other choice. Her room was busy and loud. The staff looked tired but engaged as usual – wiping noses, helping parents and scanning for dangers they might never see until it’s splashed across the news, and they find themselves blamed.

Wendy Syfret is a freelance writer and author based in Melbourne.