Childcare Qld: John-Paul Langbroek pushes for national register

Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek will take a solution to the childcare safety crisis to a meeting of his interstate counterparts.

Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek will push for a national database of childcare workers amid concerns of more predators slipping through the cracks of the system.

It comes as his federal counterpart Jason Clare rules out banning men from childcare roles, even as statistics showed they are vastly overrepresented in sexual abuse complaints in educational settings.

Mr Langbroek will push for a national early childcare register when he meets with his state and federal counterparts in Sydney next month

Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has indicated her support.

It follows a final emergency roundtable in Brisbane with nearly 30 key industry stakeholders, where other issues including the implementation of child safety training and better communication with parents on child safety issues will also be on his agenda.

“My concern is that if there are two, how many more are there? So my job is now to try to make sure that we’re dealing with the situation into the future,” Mr Langbroek told The Courier-Mail on Wednesday.

He convened snap meetings in Cairns and Brisbane after allegations of abuse by Victorian childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown.

On Wednesday, the list of childcare centres where Brown has worked grew to 24.

Mr Langbroek said the need to fast-track a national database as an urgent matter was just one outcome of the meetings that he would raise with the nation’s education ministers.

“If you leave a certain state, there’s no way of being able to ascertain that they moved … so that’s why we need to make it more robust,” he said.

Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek visits a Townsville childcare centre.

“Our No. 1 message that I want parents to hear when they’re worried about all the other things in their lives, is that we need people to be reassured that the whole sector, everyone’s working together to make sure that Queensland and Australian kids are safe in childcare.”

Mr Langbroek last week announced the state would be investing millions of dollars in landmark child safety training, which he hoped would be developed by the end of the year and implemented early next year.

The government has also launched an inquiry into how the system could have prevented serial pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith from preying on 65 children over two decades.

Australian Childcare Association Queensland president Majella Fitzsimmons said the creation of a national register would be vital moving forward.

“We’d love to say it’ll never happen again, however, they’re perpetrators for a reason, we hope that it doesn’t happen in early childhood, however it could happen,” she said.

“So let’s lessen that risk, and let’s put some measures into place.”

Meanwhile, the latest data from NSW and Victoria mandatory reporting showed 80 per cent of those accused of child sexual abuse in education settings were male, despite men making up just 3 per cent of workers in childcare and 30 per cent of teachers in schools.

Some parents have even urged their children’s childcare centres to restrict the role of men who have never faced any allegations or suspicion.

Mr Clare said fast-tracking child safety laws was the answer, rather than “just cutting blokes out altogether” from early childhood education.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare visits a school in Sydney’s west. Picture: Supplied

He said all evidence recommended a register of childcare workers and national mandatory safety training would ensure that “the 99.9 per cent of people who work in our centres who are good, honest people who love our kids and care for them”.

Federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley backed a national database of childcare workers, saying she felt “physically sick” each time she heard of pedophiles such as Ashley Paul Griffith who had been able to work with children without issues being flagged.

At a press conference in Brisbane on Thursday, Ms Ley endorsed the plan that would be pitched by Queensland’s Education Minister at a meeting in Sydney.

But she said state governments overall had to be more active on the issue.

“It isn’t good enough for state governments to sit around the table and talk about uniform legislation so that individuals can be tracked across state boundaries, but not actually act on that,” Ms Ley said.

“John-Paul Langbroek’s idea is a good one, and it’s very important that (from) people who know this space, as I know he does, we listen,” she said.

“And we make sure that together, we come up with policies that work in the real world, work for parents, and importantly, give parents peace of mind.”

Ms Ley said she had written to the Prime Minister to commit to working together to develop new legislation that would close the gaps at a regular level, but it had to centre on parents’ concerns.

“There are issues that need to be taken care of by the states, and they should step up, and I know they will here in Queensland,” she said.

“And there are aspects of this legislation that can be changed via Commonwealth legislation.”

Originally published as Childcare Qld: John-Paul Langbroek pushes for national register