Subjects: Early childhood education quality and safety, Senate childcare report
E&OE……………………………
Senator Maria Kovacic: Well good afternoon, everybody, today the Senate Education and Employment References Committee handed down its landmark report into the quality and safety of Australia’s early education and childcare system. I’d like to thank all of the individuals who provided submissions to that inquiry, to the professional educators, to the different providers and to the families of children who rely on those services. I think the most important thing that I want to say clearly is that the system is underpinned by highly dedicated professionals and centres who operate in good faith. However, the findings of the report have clearly shown us, particularly the evidence from law enforcement, that there are serious safety issues within the childcare system. We heard from the Australian Federal Police and from the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation that predators, that paedophiles, target the system in order to have access to children. They target the system to have access to pre-verbal children. ACCCE indicated that they’re receiving some 226 reports on average daily of online child exploitation. This is not something that we can pretend is not occurring. It is uncomfortable, but it is real and we must address it. There are a number of findings from the report. Those findings are shown in 23 separate recommendations. Those recommendations look to strengthening the system, they look to closing regulatory gaps and they look to ensuring that families have better flexibility in the care that they have for their children.
Primarily, we want to ensure that law enforcement has the tools that it requires in order to prosecute these individuals. We also want to ensure that regulators have the powers that they need to ensure that providers who aren’t doing what they’re meant to be doing are held to account. We believe via the recommendations that there should be increased spot checks on those centres. The recommendations also include provisions for banning operators from opening more centres or expanding existing centres if they are not currently meeting the minimum safety requirements. That should be a given, you should not be able to expand if you are not meeting the requirements currently. And of course, we are looking to change the Fair Work Act to ensure that employers are empowered to remove employees who are a danger to children. Whilst we absolutely believe in the right of workers to be protected in the workplace, that protection must not come at the expense of the safety of our children. I will now hand over to Senator O’Sullivan.
Senator Matt O’Sullivan: Well firstly to you Maria, congratulations and thank you for the great leadership that you provided as chair of this committee looking at this very important issue and of course we uncovered through the inquiry process some very harrowing testimony of people very concerned about our childcare system and the need to see vast improvements. And one of the aspects of the inquiry has been to look at the choice and flexibility of the childcare sector as well and it’s something that I’m also keen on as now the Shadow Minister for Choice and Childcare. We want to make sure as a Coalition that our system is able to provide that flexibility and choice for parents. We know that the one size fits all system that is there that’s supported by this government is only a one size fits all system but for parents that want to have choice, that want to have flexibility, they’re not offered that, they’re not offered that in the current system. So, we want to see that choice and flexibility provided. We heard from many parents throughout the inquiry, we heard from stakeholders that called for greater flexibility so that they could choose how their children are best able to be cared for. We know that just that one system doesn’t suit everyone and we want to make sure that that choice is there for families to be able to support their kids, whether they’re choosing to be able to send their kids to childcare and centre-based care and making sure that there’s actually the affordability and importantly the availability of those places, but including also those parents that want that flexibility, maybe they work shift work, maybe they’re FIFO workers and having to work away from home and then when they come back they want to be able to spend that time with their families and with their children but they lose their place in that childcare centre if they’re not in that off-swing working with them. So, we want to make sure there’s greater flexibility and choice and that’s why the Coalition is and that’s why I was very pleased to be able to support you Maria in this in this report and the recommendations that go along with it. Happy to take questions.
Journalist: Could you elaborate a bit on the recommendations that would amend the Fair Work Act and how that specifically might apply to some of the cases that we’ve seen coming out with the childcare situation… [inaudible]?
Senator Maria Kovacic: Sure, so some of the evidence that we heard at the inquiry was that some employers could see some red flags. There were behaviours that were a concern but didn’t quite meet the test of a criminality perhaps. And they were hamstrung in acting on that. They knew something wasn’t right, they could see a whole bunch of individual behaviours that on their own seemed a little bit benign, perhaps maybe a little bit concerning, but when you put them all together they look to be a pattern and are a significant concern. And a number of the employer groups spoke about the fact that that then is a problem because they’re unable to act on that. The reality is that the current Act requires there to be an act of harm before an employer can do something. We often had examples of where employees had left their current employment before they were held to account for any behaviour and those employers were unable to provide that feedback in reference checks to subsequent employers. So, these are regulatory gaps that need to be filled. It’s not about taking away workers’ rights, it’s ensuring that in these particular circumstances that worker rights, and particularly the worker rights of somebody that is harming a child, does not take precedence over the safety of our child.
Journalist: To what degree will this inquiry inform the Coalition’s policy on childcare?
Senator Matt O’Sullivan: Oh very much so, there was terrific evidence that we heard right throughout the inquiry and in the report you’ll see those stakeholders that have put forward a view that we need to have greater flexibility and choice. We’re looking at a whole range of options and a whole range of things that we’ll bring forward at the appropriate time as to how we can best deliver that. And of course the evidence that we received has given us great food for thought as to how we could achieve that. There are many ways, obviously the childcare subsidy and the way that the system is structured in terms of making sure there’s accessibility and flexibility within the existing system, but also other ways that you could look at providing support for families to be able to look for that informal care that might be necessary for them and their choice to be able to care for their kids. And so, the evidence was tremendous and I echo Maria’s sentiments in thanking all of those that put in submissions and fronted up to inquiries in those sessions that we had where we got to hear that evidence directly from people.
Senator Maria Kovacic: And if I could just add to that briefly, I think one of the things that we often forget is that not everybody lives in a metropolitan city. Not everybody has an abundance of access to childcare centres. We have, you know, people in rural and regional centres that live in childcare deserts. They have no options as to the care for their children. One of the submissions talked about evidence from a family where they had to do a 200 kilometre or thereabouts round trip just to take their child to a centre. When you think about the cost impost in that, the time impost and the impact to the family of having that additional pressure on top of cost of living, on top of going to work just to access childcare, that’s not good enough. We have to be able to provide a system that works for all Australian families, not just for some Australian families.
Senator Matt O’Sullivan: We’ve called to the government through this inquiry to actually define and tell us what they actually mean by universal. What do they actually mean by making childcare a universal system? If what it means is they’re going to remove the means testing, then that means that we’re not directing the support to the families that really need it the most, particularly those on lower and middle incomes. And to provide a simple provision of childcare to people on high incomes, is that really the way and the direction that we need to go as a country? We want to make sure that those families, particularly vulnerable families, particularly those families with kids most at risk and at need, we want to make sure that the support is provided to them and that we’re targeting that support rather than just providing this universal system.
Senator Maria Kovacic: It reminds me of an example of one of the submissions of a witness named Bec who is a single mom who escaped family violence, rebuilt her life, trained as a nurse and is now at risk of losing her nursing accreditation and losing her job because she is unable to work the requisite hours because the location she is living in now does not have adequate care for her child. So, these are the things that we need to think about. The world is very different and families needs extend beyond that 8 am to 6 am or 7 am to 6 pm centre-based care model. Again, most families will be well served by those professional and wonderful centres and educators, but it doesn’t serve everybody.
Journalist: Could I get a reaction to the dissenting reports from Labor and the Greens … [inaudible]
Senator Maria Kovacic: Look, I don’t think so. I think there are different views as to how to solve the problem. But I will say this to you, I’ve been very open and transparent in the conduct of this inquiry. I’ve had the door open to anybody that wanted to make submissions and who wanted to present evidence and I think that’s clear in the register of the public hearing witnesses. I think what’s important to note that there is very little in those dissenting reports that talks to how we increase safety and how we keep paedophiles out of the childcare system. And I think they’re probably two really important questions to raise with the government and the Greens.
Senator Matt O’Sullivan: Absolutely, they were completely silent. Labor were completely silent when it came to paedophiles within the system and what they would do to strengthen the steps. The Greens, there was a simple very simple and I thought a position that could be accepted by all senators here for a referral to the ALRC in regards to sentencing and the Greens were recommending against that simple referral. So this wasn’t in any way partisan, it was simple to be able to make sure that protection and that safety and I really commend Maria for the way that she chaired the inquiry because it was done in a very collegial way and it was done in a way that got to hear from all stakeholders. We had unions, we had parent groups, we had centre-based care providers, we had in-home care providers, all part of the inquiry and it was done in a very collegial way. Thank you.
[ENDS]