The report said stricter guardrails were required, finding there was an over-reliance on workers who had not yet completed their qualifications. It said there should always be two workers in the presence of a child, not just under one roof as it stands under existing national staffing arrangements.
It urged Victoria to advocate a Commonwealth rethink of the system.
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“This needs to prioritise quality and safety, reconsider the current funding model and reliance on the market, and set a 10-year strategy to fundamentally reform the ECEC system, including careful planning for workforce growth and quality.”
Weatherill and White said the state should establish a new database, powered by artificial intelligence, bringing intelligence together to inform the working with children check scheme and a register of childcare workers.
This would ensure warning signs about childcare workers were not scattered as “breadcrumbs” but aggregated and accessible.
Working with children checks should be able to consider unsubstantiated allegations made through the reportable conduct scheme, and these should be brought into a single entity that also handled the child safety standards, the review said.
“Currently, the trail of information that can identify a predator’s behaviour sits in too many different places … The review heard repeatedly about ‘breadcrumbs’ that can be missed by the failure to piece information together.”
Anyone rejected for a clearance check, or whose clearance is revoked, should no longer be able to seek review through the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal, and instead there should be an internal review process, it said.
Unsubstantiated allegations, investigations and findings should also be shared among jurisdictions, the review said, with a national approach and database.
The proposed information sharing goes beyond reforms advocated three years ago by former ombudsman Deborah Glass that were never adopted by the state government.
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Online child safety training and testing should also be mandatory to gain a working with children check, the review said.
The rapid review also recommended the state establish an independent regulator within 12 months, and said every centre should be randomly inspected at least once a year to strengthen compliance, which would be “nation-leading”.
Repeated reviews of child safety over the past decade have recommended reforms to state systems and the national framework, with childcare sex abuse scandals rocking Sydney and Brisbane, devastating stories of abuse and neglect at for-profit centres around the country, corporate collapses and accusations of financial misconduct.
The latest review recommended that Victoria urge education ministers around the country to establish and resource a time-limited Early Education Reform Commission to track recommendations and reforms and ensure they are delivered. The ministers are to meet on Friday.
The Commonwealth should also reinstate its funding for state regulators, it said, and trial CCTV in centres.
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It called for a national register of childcare workers, which was recommended by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority back in 2023. States and territories have committed to speed this up after slow progress.
Victoria Police arrested Joshua Brown on May 12 but spent weeks tracking his work history across more than 20 childcare centres over eight years. The lack of any register for childcare workers complicated this task and authorities revealed only on July 1 that they had charged the 26-year-old with more than 70 offences, including child rape.
The review of the state’s early education sector acknowledged predators would still get into the system.
“There is no silver bullet. The review recommends a system of checks and balances that work together to keep children safe. All parties need to play a role in this system of checks and balances.”
The Victorian government has separately ordered the early childhood regulator to investigate the conduct of the childcare operators for whom Brown worked.
Brown’s case was pushed back until February next year to allow detectives more time to investigate, after a court heard in July that more charges were likely to be laid.
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