Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (13:41): Pursuant to standing order 23.22, I table the select committee’s final report on the inquiry into the early childhood education and care sector in Victoria, including an appendix and extracts of proceedings, and I present the transcripts of evidence. I move:

That the transcripts of evidence be tabled and the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

I am pleased to table the final report of the inquiry into the early childhood education and care sector in Victoria. This inquiry was in response to serious child abuse allegations levelled against educator Joshua Brown in July 2025. These were some of the most distressing and disgusting allegations ever seen in Victoria committed against young, innocent children. These horrific tragedies exposed systemic failures in systems and this Victorian Labor government’s regulatory failings to keep Victorian children safe. Children had to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases – children younger than five years old – and I cannot even begin to imagine the lifelong harm inflicted on these children and their families as a result of these failings.

The select committee of six was formed after the Greens pushed for accountability and transparency in the sector, eventually leading to this select committee and parliamentary inquiry. The committee received 102 submissions and heard from 66 witnesses over seven days of public in-person hearings, and I would like to thank everyone that contributed to this hearing. We heard about educator shortages, staff working under sustained high-pressure environments, the rise of the for-profit sector and the weakening of children’s safety to profit, the lack of Aboriginal cultural safety embedded in the sector, disability inclusion and system complexity. We also heard the loud calls for greater investment, greater stewardship and support for all those that work so hard to ensure the safety of children.

This report found that the quality assessment and regulation division, the former regulator sitting within the Department of Education, failed to keep children safe because essentially they were marking their own homework. With the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (VECRA) as the new regulator the committee recommends in recommendation 14 that the new regulator is more accountable and transparent in publishing of data and reporting. This is important to restore parent and carer confidence, which has been severely eroded.

The committee acknowledges that the majority of educators do the right thing day in and day out and yet are not always resourced fairly. A part of the gaps heard in the inquiry was the lack of professional development and workforce strategy to retain and attract workforce to regional or early childcare education deserts. The committee recommends the government ensure educators are paid fairly and have access to these professional opportunities.

One of the gaping holes found in the sector was the lack of public data and information in the sector for parents, and what was available was complex and hard to navigate and understand. Our inquiry recommendations urge the government to ensure that the Social Services Regulator and VECRA work more transparently and collaboratively to ensure safety is always of paramount interest.

We also heard about gaps in Aboriginal-led providers and their partnership frameworks not being fully embedded in sector design and delivery. In the new treaty era the government needs to do more to work with Gellung Warl and Aboriginal community controlled organisations to improve the outcomes of Closing the Gap and centre First Nations ways of knowing when caring for mob.

Recommendation 30 is that it is important to hold large for-profit providers accountable and to be transparent with information to parents about their ownership and financial performance.

Recommendation 1 calls on the government to advocate for a national commission, which is so crucial to really improving the safety and service quality of the sector. This national body is really important to mitigate any risks of the sector continuing to be fragmented and also to close any loops for bad faith actors waiting in the wings to exploit and harm children.

I would like to thank the work of the secretariat and the team: manager Matt Newington, inquiry officer Te Kooanga Awatere, Sylvette Bassy, Frank Fong, Julie Barnes and Monique Riordan-Hill. Thank you so much for your commitment and dedication over what has been a really long inquiry. We really appreciate your patience with the whole committee. Thank you also to the committee members for their continued dedication to ensuring that the recommendations and findings that we ended up with are not going to allow the repeat of these failures and will, most importantly, keep children safe.

We only get one childhood. Good or bad, its impacts last a lifetime. I hope that this government heeds the findings and recommendations of this inquiry and works harder than ever to protect young Victorian learners in early childhood and education settings and ensure that their experiences are positive ones that last a lifetime. Thank you to everyone that has been a part of this inquiry. The circumstances that brought us here are really sad, but this was really, really important work that needed to be addressed, and I commend this report to the house.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:46): I take up where the chair left off and acknowledge her remarkable efforts in this inquiry and those of all members, including Ms Ermacora, Dr Mansfield, Ms Crozier and Ms Bath. I think it is fair to say that while we disagreed at some points, overall we were absolutely united by a common purpose. I see Ms Crozier smiling at me about the disagreements. I could not imagine why. I would also like to particularly acknowledge the secretariat – Matt Newington and team members Te Kooanga and Sylvette in particular – and all of the Council’s committee staff who so ably supported our work.

As the chair outlined, this inquiry came about in the aftermath of some horrific allegations, which are still before the judicial system, at a number of childcare centres in Melbourne – an issue that has horrified our state’s entire community. At the same time as this inquiry was getting underway of course there was the rapid child safety review, which was immediately commissioned by the government and headed up by Pam White and Jay Weatherill, and that set out a range of recommendations for state and federal governments to acquit. I am very pleased to see that throughout this inquiry we did have the opportunity to effectively in real time assess the acquittal of those recommendations and to see the very hard efforts, including by Minister Blandthorn and her team, to ensure that all of the recommendations to the state government have been acquitted, including changes to national law, the new independent regulator – that being the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (VECRA), replacing the former Quality Assessment and Regulation Division (QARD) – and the Social Services Regulator bills which passed through this place last year as well. Indeed stakeholders were very keen to tell us that they viewed the new legislative framework in place in Victoria as the best in the nation and something that, whilst we can always seek to improve further upon, certainly sets that benchmark for other states to follow.

Again, with this short period of time, I do not have enough time to go into every facet of this report, but I look forward to doing so at a future time.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (13:48): I also rise to speak to the report on the early childhood education and care sector in Victoria inquiry that was undertaken by the select committee on the early childhood education and care sector in Victoria. I want to also acknowledge the secretariat and committee members that participated in this important inquiry.

Let us not forget why we started this inquiry. It was after the horrific allegations, as has been said by other members, about Joshua Brown and the shocking circumstances that many parents and children had been placed in, not knowing if their children were abused. I recall the hundreds of children that had to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. It was truly, truly dreadful, and at the time there was a lot of concern being raised. I want to also acknowledge the work of the former Shadow Minister for Education, now Leader of the Opposition, Jess Wilson, who was really pushing this issue very significantly in the public domain.

This report goes into a lot of areas, as has already been covered. I want to go to two findings that I want to make note of. Finding 9 states:

The Commission for Children and Young People, the former administrator of the Reportable Conduct Scheme and Child Safe Standards, failed to maintain its responsibilities under the various child safety schemes. It had repeatedly called to the Victorian Government for increased funding, but did not receive additional funding.

That is under this Labor government. Finding 12 states:

In September 2022, the Victorian Ombudsman identified several issues with the Working with Children Check framework in its report Investigation into a former youth worker’s unauthorised access to private information about children. The Victorian Government failed to act on these recommendations to strengthen the Working with Children Check framework until 2025, and after the Rapid Child Safety Review made similar recommendations.

I also want to make some comments around the former Department of Education secretary Tony Bates, who has been sacked by Labor –

David Davis interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Yes, correctly, because of the serious and concerning conduct that was found against him. (Time expired)

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (13:50): I too want to make a contribution. I would just like to start by thanking the secretariat, the chair and fellow committee members. This was, as has been said, a really important inquiry. As a parent who had one of my children still in long day care when some of these stories were breaking about horrific allegations at childcare centres across Australia, including in Victoria, I shared in that collective shock, fear and guilt that I think so many parents experienced when these stories surfaced. While I have to say we have been so lucky with wonderful educators – and there are brilliant educators and services right across the system – stories like this really create doubt and make us question the trust that we place in these institutions. I mean, how on earth could such horrific things happen to so many children without anyone noticing? We trust the systems as well as the oversight and the regulation. We trust that they will keep our kids safe. It is one of the most important duties of government. What these cases and the subsequent gaps identified through this inquiry have shown is that the government failed. They failed to do this properly.

This inquiry heard that there are particular issues in the for-profit private sector. There are opaque governance structures, incentive schemes and obligations to shareholders which distort priorities, and the government has allowed those centres to proliferate on the assumption, it seems, that any service is better than none. There is a lot more detail in this inquiry that is worth looking into. I would like to say my heart really goes out to all the children and their families who have been harmed as a result of these failures. Nothing can undo the damage, but I really hope that the findings and recommendations of this inquiry will be implemented in full to prevent future harm to children and babies.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (13:52): I just want to reiterate all of the congratulations and thankyous that the previous speakers made. Thank you, Chair, as well for the work that you did. It was a really challenging inquiry because it was a devastating incident that triggered the inquiry. I would also like to thank the witnesses that came forward, particularly the peak bodies who gave data and evidence around the prevalence of childhood sexual assault, not just with children and youth but also across our whole community. I came away feeling that it was still a challenge that we face, and that is something that I hope the outcomes of this inquiry will assist with.

In closing, I just want to thank Minister Lizzie Blandthorn for responding so quickly with the rapid review, pursuing that without wasting any time, and then responding with reforms to the regulatory environment. That is going to strengthen the early childhood sector and the workers in that sector in their ability to identify and prevent abuse of children in education settings.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (13:54): I would just like to add my voice to thank the chair and the secretariat, Matt Newington and his fabulous team, but also my colleagues and the witnesses and submitters, many of whom were from regional Victoria, which I was very pleased to see. The report makes clear that child safety must be paramount in all considerations across the entire sector, whether it be public, private, short or long day care or after-school care.

One of the things that we heard, indeed it is in finding 12, related to the fact that the rapid review occurred only after the Ombudsman three years previously had provided a great context and alarming examples of how the working with children check was not functioning and the framework was not supporting children and needed to be overhauled. Now we are four years later, and this report has been tabled with some good work in it – not that I agree with all of the recommendations.

We saw fragmented accountability. We saw that, particularly in terms of Aboriginal children, there was a gap between participation rates, which had improved, and actual developmental outcomes, which had not improved over the last many years – and this is a concern – and that there is a need for genuine collaboration and funding that serves those workforce shortages, in particular in rural and regional Victoria where there are childcare deserts. Retention of those staff is challenging and compliance can be challenging, but also, in terms of the added burden of bureaucratic workload and paperwork, we want to see better outcomes. We want to see better services there. We want to see happy and well-funded staff and safe children. I think there are lots of lessons to be learned here. I do think all governments, including ours when we get in on 28 November, should take note of this report.

Motion agreed to.