Experts warn thousands of abusers may have slipped through the cracks

There's a national wake up call this morning after a Four Corners investigation into the childcare industry revealed almost 150 educators have been accused, charged or convicted of child abuse most in the past decade.

For more, Early Childhood Australia CEO Samantha Page joins.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
There's a national wake up call this morning after a
four Corners investigation into the childcare industry revealed almost one
hundred and fifty educators have been accused, charged or convicted
of child abuse, most in the past decade. Even worse,
experts worn thousands more could be slipping through the cracks
as well. With safeguards failing at every level, parents are

(00:22):
left asking how many children have to suffer before we
fix a broken system and early Childhood Australia CEO Samantha
Page joins us. Now, good morning to you. Unfortunately, we
have been speaking about this for months and months and months,
and it feels like it's getting worse. How did it
get to this point? Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Look, I think these are mostly historic investigations, so we
have known about them for a while. But I think
that and I do want to say, you know, there
are over two hundred thousand educators that work every day
with children, and by far the majority of them are
absolutely committed to child safety and well being. But I
do think the time has come for a new approach

(01:04):
to quality regulation. I think we need to demand a
lot more of approved providers and be stricter about who
is allowed to operate in this system, and I think
we really need to invest in the workforce, higher staffing ratios,
more training for educators to be on the alert for
predators such as we've seen on the story last night.

(01:27):
And look, it's devastating for everyone involved in the sector here.
For we want children to be safe in every setting
where they might attend.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
We know, Samantha that the federal Education Minister, Jason Clair,
has been very emotional about this, has been very determined
about trying to fix this, particularly when it comes to
background checks, vetting of childcare workers and making sure that
there is a centralized system. When is that going to
happen and can we implement it soon?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I mean it's happening in a way already, like we
already have working with vulnerable children and sorry, working with
children checks on people. But what the government is doing
is strengthening that up so anyone working in a service
must have that before they step through the door. There's
also the educator Register that's being established very quickly. That'll
be operational by February next year. Look, I do think

(02:24):
governments around the country and the federal government have moved
quickly to strengthen safeguards in the system, but there's still
more that we can do. We really need the Commonwealth government,
particularly to take a stewardship role, to establish an Early
Childhood Commission, to put more restrictions on who's operating in
the sector. There's a lot more the federal government can
do there. And we need the state and territory governments

(02:46):
to step up the quality regulation system strength and that.
We just can't have services going years between rating and assessment,
and we need more regular compliance checks and to be fair,
some of the state government have committed to that, but
we need that to be more universal across the country.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, and it's got to happen now, doesn't it. We
can't wait for months at a time each time this
new legislation or stronger legislation comes into place. Samantha, really
appreciate your time. We'll continue talking about this too, because
it's ongoing, isn't it.