Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Early childcare education and care

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (10:00): In 2022 Victoria’s Ombudsman warned that our working with children check laws were amongst the weakest in the nation. They called for reforms to close loopholes that meant checks would only be reviewed upon criminal convictions and for no other reasons. The government ignored them. In 2023 Joshua Brown, alleged paedophile, was investigated for aggressively handling children. It was reported to police, it was reported to the regulator through the reportable conduct scheme and he was issued with a formal written warning, but no review of his working with children check was triggered.

In 2023 I supported MPs calling for the strengthening of the working with children check process to close the loopholes and for mandatory training; again the government did nothing. Meanwhile, in January 2024 Joshua Brown was again reported for aggressively handling children. He was reported to the police, reported to the regulator, suspended indefinitely by the childcare centre he was at, but, according to the ABC, it is believed the Commission for Children and Young People, which oversees the reportable conduct scheme, used discretionary powers not to escalate Mr Brown’s case as it was viewed as a lower level incident. He then resigned and went on to work at 10 different other centres where he went on to allegedly commit 70 offences – that we know of – against babies aged between five months and three years of age in childcare centres across Victoria. The government knew about this and did nothing.