Childcare shouldn’t hurt kids. But for-profit centres with huge casualised workforces are doing just that. The thought that a nine-month-old baby could be sexually assaulted or penetrated in care should shock everyone to the core. It should remind people that childcare should be safe. And that investor profits come at the expense of child safety.
Childcare is an essential service that should be properly regulated, staff should be well-trained and police-checked, have sufficient ratios so that staff are never alone with kids, staff phones or recording devices should not be permitted around children, and most importantly, a centre should never have to turn a profit for the benefit of shareholders. I am not sure on CCTV yet, I would want to know that it truly protected children, because when we rely on that, our regulatory bodies are let off the hook.
We need to remember, in for-profit childcare, it’s the investors they are servicing, not the children. There’s only one way to create a profit in childcare centres, and that’s to run on a bare bones staffing roster and increase your consumer base, aka children. It was always going to go wrong. Because the model IS wrong. Childcare has become the new coalmines.
This week the lead story on the ABC website details an investigation by Four Corners into our local Southern Cross University – accused of fast-tracking what is usually a four-year childcare degree to a ten-month diploma, targeting overseas students wanting a visa pathway that permits the university to use childcare training as a ‘cash cow’. The ABC estimates a revenue of over $150 million in just two years. Some of these students are reported to be 40-50-year-old men with backgrounds in IT and engineering, not childcare. This is concerning. The safety of our children should be paramount.
In a news.com story from March this year it was reported that childcare centres are a honeypot for private investors, with owners raking in millions. This is a $20 billion industry, and investors are ‘football players, haircare brand entrepreneurs, and high-flying property developers living luxurious lifestyles.’ When babies are raped in the places that aren’t safe for them but are a ‘safe bet’ for investors, there is only one conclusion: for-profit models of childcare are perpetrating harm on our kids.
Melbourne childcare worker Josh Brown has been charged with more than 70 child abuse offences on children as young as five months old. It has been reported that as a casual worker he worked at over 20 centres. How can a person be able to isolate and harm children so easily? While Working with Children police checks are necessary, they only flag people who have already harmed children. First time offenders won’t be detected. This is where proper training pathways come in. A four-year degree is a much greater obstacle than a ten-month diploma. And staff should never be alone with children. This alone would decrease the likelihood of abusers using the role of childcarers as a pathway to sexual assault. If they can’t access and isolate the kids, they won’t bother becoming childcarers.
There has been some suggestion that men are no longer permitted to be childcarers. This is not a solution. Some of the most incredible childcare providers for my kids were men. Kids thrive with healthy male and female role models in care roles. And sending a message that care is gendered just reinforces stereotypes around male and female roles. It also accepts that all men are potentially dangerous to children. And we know that this isn’t true. But we do know that some men are, and that profit-driven systems create pathways not just for investors, but for paedophiles. Shut down the profit, and you’ll shut out the perps.
Community-owned, community-led, publicly-funded childcare, that is robustly regulated, that has sufficient staffing ratios, that is professionalised, and not monetised, is the pathway forward.
Our kids deserve to be safe. They are not investment portfolios. They are our future.
- Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox column has appeared in The Echo for almost 23 years. The personal and the political often meet here; she’s also been the Greens federal candidate since before the last two federal elections. The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
