The Federal Government has announced it will strength regulations governing childhood education and care as part of a crackdown on unscrupulous providers.
In a statement, Minister for Early Childhood Education Anne Aly and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said the vast majority of providers were prioritising child safety and wellbeing.
“However, we know that there are a very small number of providers doing the wrong thing – and when it comes to children’s best interests one dodgy operator is too many,” they said.
The Government will strengthen Commonwealth regulatory and enforcement powers to:
- Prevent providers who persistently fail to meet minimum standards and repetitively breach the National Law from opening new Child Care Subsidy approved services.
- Take compliance action against existing providers with egregious and continued breaches, including the option to cut off access to Child Care Subsidy funding where appropriate.
- Strengthen powers to deal with providers that pose an integrity risk.
The Ministers said the Government would consult closely with the sector and with states and territories to ensure these changes did not negatively impact families and quality providers.
“Unfortunately, when a dodgy operator is detected and removed from one part of the national care economy they sometimes pop up as an operator in another care sector,” they said.
“To stamp this out the Government will also investigate stronger cross-sector banning order arrangements to stop people who have breached safety and quality standards in one part of the care economy from operating in other care sectors.”
Dr Aly said there was no room for any dodgy operators in the early childhood education and care sector.
“I expect state and territory governments to fulfil their regulatory obligations and ensure early childhood education services in their jurisdictions are meeting our world leading quality standards,” she said.
“We know that the overwhelming majority of services and people in the sector do the right thing, but if you’re failing to deliver quality and safe early childhood education you shouldn’t have access to government funding and you shouldn’t be working in the sector.”
To learn more about these reforms visit education.gov.au/early-childhood/announcements/building-universal-early-education-and-care-system
