Adele Ferguson on why children aren’t safe at childcare centres

Just a warning before we get started. This episode discusses child sexual abuse. Please take care while listening. Are children safe at childcare?

I believe right now they're not safe.

That's a huge statement.

It is.

This sector is in crisis and that's why the governments really have to act urgently, because children aren't safe.

Adele Ferguson is an investigative journalist at the ABC. She spent nine months reporting on the crisis unfolding in Australia's childcare system. So once she heard last week that a childcare worker in Victoria was charged with more than seventy offenses relating to sexual abuse of children. She says the allegations were disgusting but not surprising.

When it comes to sexual misconduct and offenses. At least one a day are reported in Victoria, WA and New South Wales. We don't know how many across Australia because Queensland, Northern Territory in South Australia don't have a reportable conduct scheme. And what we do know is there's a lot of underreporting.

Now twelve hundred children, some as young as five months old, are being tested for sexually transmitted diseases and the government is scrambling to stop something like this from happening again. I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM today four Corners reporter Adele Ferguson on the dangers in an industry driven by profit. A National Children's Commissioner Ann Hollands on what needs to be done to protect children in care. It's Monday, July seven. Good evening.

We begin with one of the most distressing child sex abuse investigations in Victoria's history.

Hundreds of children are tonight the waiting urgent. Adell thank you for speaking with me. Can you just lay out for us the allegations that have emerged in the last few days about sexual abuse in Victorian childcare centers.

Yeah.

So it was a twenty six year old called Joshua Brown who was arrested and charged with seventy counts of sexual abuse of children. Eight children between the ages of five months and two years, so very young.

Police have records of the man working at twenty different childcare centers between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty five, most of them in Melbourne's West. The state government, how is it that.

That could happen? What safeguards are in place to stop perpetrators working in childcare centers.

They are supposed to be working with children's checks, but they're deeply flawed. So each state is different. In Queensland you have the blue card and other states that's the working with children and what happens is you have to have been charged with a serious offense to lose you working with children check, so you might be under the radar and so you have a working with Children's check,

The man who was alleged to have molested children in his care worked across several centers. On the surface, it's hard to understand how he wasn't caught by our colleague. Sooner, can you tell me what you're reporting is uncovered about why it is that childcare workers may not report abuse if they see it.

Yeah, there's a number of reasons. One, how do these people get away with it? You know, in the case of Ashley Griffith who's now in Jay Off the Life, he worked across many centers and it went under the radar anything. How does that happen when this guy had tripods and was filming in the childcare center.

One of Australia's worst ever pedophiles has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for twenty seven years after confessing to raping and abusing scores of girls in childcare centers across Australia and overseas.

One of the reasons is lack of supervision. There aren't enough staff. There's a lot of gaming of the system when it comes to staff to child ratios. But in terms of the reporting of it, it's mandatory to report. But there's two reasons why it often doesn't happen. One, a lot of educators don't understand child protection policies. They don't understand and the mandatory reporting that's required, so they.

Don't do it.

And the other reason is they're too scared sometimes if they report anything they get retribution or they become a pririe because they're dobbing in a workmate.

And so there's those two.

Things that they're not protected when they do the mandatory that they should, but they're not protected.

From the system when they do.

Your Four Corners investigation into the childcare sector revealed that even the dodgy ist providers who aren't meeting basic standards are still allowed to operate. Can you explain how that works?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

You know.

One of the problems is there's been this.

Explosion in for profit operators, private equity listed companies, overseas operators, and they're putting profit before children, and because there's such a demand for childcare centers, the regulators seem to not have the appetite to go after them. So when educators do something wrong, in many cases, when you're looking at the regulatory documents or you're talking to parents, not a

High enough, I'm thinking to myself.

Yeah, it's a good idea, but the regulators aren't even using the penalties that they have. So there's a problem, and I think one of the reasons for that is if they go in hard and shut a center down, they're worried what are the implications for parents? Where do the parents put the children.

There's been a lot of focus by the federal government on expanding access to childcare. Within that, what focus has there been on safety?

Not a lot, as we can clearly see. It's only since this terrible incident happened in Victoria that governments are coming out saying we've got to do more. Jason Clair was on seventh thirty saying we haven't done enough and we've got to move faster.

We're taking action, but not enough action has happened, and not fast enough.

All right, let's talk about that.

Safety has not been on the agenda. It's all been about affordability.

The honest answer to you is that this job will never be done, that there will always be bad people that try and break through the net. That doesn't mean that you do nothing, though. That means that we've got to do everything that we possibly can to make sure that our children are safe. That's why people are talking now about CCTV or about an educator register about improving Working with Children checks. None of that is a silver bullet. None of that is going to guarantee every child is safe.

What the government is saying is by September they will have a working national Working with Children checks. There also needs to be a national registration scheme for educators so that we can track who they are, how often they've moved around. We have that for age care, we have it for teachers, we have it for medical practitioners. We don't have it for child care workers.

After the break, the National Children's Commissioner Ann Holands or a national response that could protect the voiceless. And you called for stronger regulation of the childcare sector. What would that actually look like. What sort of things would change to make sure that there is stronger regulation.

Well, first of all, I think we need independent oversight and monitoring. What I'm unclear about is how independent the current regulators are in the states and territories. Secondly, they need to be properly resourced. So you know, we've heard allegations that they're not visiting centers very often. That's because of a lack of funds. And then thirdly, they need to have teeth to act. They need legislation that enables

Another thing that has been floated at the moment is that all child care centers should have CCTV surveillance within them. What do you think about that.

Well, I think the recommendation came out of the New South Wales review after the Four Corners episodes, and I think that recommendation said that you'd only have CCTV for the dodgy providers. Well, the dodgy providers shouldn't be operating, so forget that, they should be out of the game. And I note that Good Start Early Learning, which is the largest not for profit provider in the country, have already announced that they're going to install CCTV everywhere, so

We've also heard a lot in the wake of these allegations that our discussion has emerged about banning men from working in childcare centers. Do you think that that's a legitimate proposal policy that the sector could adopt or is are the other factors that need to be taken to an account.

Well, look, I think it's an overreaction, and I perhaps understandable given how outraged we are across the country right now, but I don't support it. You know, I think there are very good childcare workers of both men and women in the sector who are doing an amazing job. And I don't think gender is the issue here. When we look at the reportable conduct issues that have emerged, there's a lot that are from female childcare workers, a lot

You said, National Cabinet must make child safety and well being a key priority in the same way that women's safety is a top priority. What would that actually look like an well, you know.

That could be done with a stroke of a pen, Daniel. There could be a decision made by the Prime Minister that you know, we need to prioritize child safety and well being and he get his state and territory colleagues to agree to that. With women and women's safety, what it looks like is that there are reports to National cab it on reform actions that have been agreed on and all the states and territories work together with the Commonwealth to progress reforms. So everybody's at the table and

What does it say about our society and that we've relegated the care of our oldest and our youngest to systems driven by profit and which we see time and time again. I write with abuse.

Well, you know, I spent a lot of time asking myself why are children sidelined and often invisible when it comes to policy? When you ask about that in terms of children, well, they don't vote, for a start, they don't have a voice and there is no accountability mechanisms in place. What does it say about our society? Well, I think it shows actually a gap between what people value.

And thank you so much for your time, Thanks Daniel. There is specialists help available for people who have experienced sexual abuse. Kids Helpline is a free confidential counseling service for young people aged from five to twenty five. You can reach them on one eight hundred five five one eight hundred. They're available twenty four hours, seven days a week, or you can call one eight hundred Respect, a counseling service which also supports people affected by sexual assault. They're