Big fines for breaches as childcare workers ‘drowning’
Kat Wong |
Dodgy childcare providers could soon be hit with supersized penalties but some warn the changes don’t go far enough.
Reforms unveiled on Wednesday triple fines, increase the maximum penalty for large providers by 900 per cent and double the number of offences for which NSW childcare providers can be fined.
Centres will be forced to display compliance breaches in foyers as part of the changes that would impact 460,000 children.
The move follows national outrage over safety failures, abuse and timid watchdogs in the sector.
The “nation-leading and landmark” reforms would rebuild trust with parents, NSW cabinet minister Courtney Houssos told reporters in Sydney.
“We have wonderful centres, we have fantastic educators, but this will give the regulator and parents the power to know when they’re not.”
The minister hopes increasing the maximum penalty from $3400 to $10,200 for individuals and from $17,000 to $51,600 in other cases will dis-incentivise bad behaviour.
The regulator will publicise when it suspends or revokes quality ratings and orders supervision for individual educators.
NSW Greens MP Abigail Boyd welcomed the changes and acknowledged it would shift the regulator’s attitude, but considers the reforms “shockingly minor”.
“Most people dropping their kids off would have expected safety is already at the heart of the sector,” she told AAP.
“You have reform that is so welcome and so significant, but also low-hanging fruit.”
The legislation focused largely on putting bad providers on notice, instead of encouraging good providers to grow, she said.
Data from Australia’s childcare regulator showed not-for-profit childcare services rated higher on average for quality, but more than 70 per cent of long daycare centres were operated by private providers.
In the decade to 2023, the number of for-profit providers grew 60 per cent while non-profit numbers were relatively stable, research from childcare experts Marianne Fenech and Gabrielle Meagher found.
“Really large for-profits with overseas shareholders – like private equity – they do not care about children, they care about profit,” Ms Boyd said.
The educators union wants fairer funding for community preschools as the facilities continue to lose workers.
That funding was almost solely derived from the state government, union secretary Carol Matthews said.
“Community preschool teachers and educators are drowning under increasing workloads, and intense pressure to maintain a high standard of care,” the Independent Education Union official said.
“Poor pay and conditions mean community preschools are struggling to attract new staff to their services and are losing staff to other sectors.
“Quality costs money.”
The reckoning over Australia’s early education system was set in motion after Victorian childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown was charged with sexually abusing eight children under the age of two.
A slew of separate allegations have since been made against childcare workers in other states, fuelling calls for action.
The federal government has unveiled a website to name and shame early learning centres that breach child safety laws and passed reforms to strip childcare providers of their funding if they fail to meet quality, safety and compliance standards.
But many issues relating to the enforcement of childcare centres rests with the states.
AAP
