A new national worker register and child safety training for early educators becomes mandatory across the country today.
These changes are part of our $226 million package of safety reforms to strengthen the early childhood education and care sector.
National Early Childhood Worker Register
From today, all early childhood education and care services will be required to provide workforce information to the new National Early Childhood Worker Register.
The Register will make it easier to track staff across centres and jurisdictions.
It will bring together information that services are already required to keep, including Working with Children Checks, qualifications and identifying information.
The Australian Government is investing $45 million to develop and implement the Register, which has been successfully tested with more than 1,000 services nationwide.
Providers will have four weeks to upload workforce information to the Register.
Providers must update the Register within 14 days whenever someone is employed, leaves, or when relevant information changes.
Providers that fail to provide this information can be fined up to $34,200.
Mandatory Child Safety Training
From today, staff are able to access mandatory child safety training. More than 100,000 staff have already registered.
Services can close from 5pm on a few days each year to conduct mandatory child safety training, with advance notice provided to families.
Staff will be required to complete the training within six months, and new staff must complete the training within 14 days.
Our early educators are the best asset we have to keep our children safe. That's why we are introducing this mandatory safety training.
This training will also be compulsory for company directors and centre leadership.
It has been developed by the Australian Centre for Child Protection and will give educators the skills they need to detect, stop and report abuse.
Up to $40 million each year from the existing Child Care Subsidy will support this.
Providers that fail to ensure that staff undertake this training can be fined up to $34,200.
Compliance Action
Last year, the Government passed new laws that give us the power to cut off funding to services that don't meet the National Quality Standard (NQS) when it comes to safety and quality, where there's a breach of the law, or where services are acting in a way that puts the safety of children at risk.
Since August, more than 60 centres have had conditions placed on them. For 30 services the deadline is this month.
These 30 services were identified by the Department of Education in close cooperation with states and territories as failing to meet the NQS relating to child health and safety over seven or more years.
19 of the 30 services with a condition due in February are now meeting standards.
1 centre has been closed, and another is yet to be assessed by their state regulator.
9 have failed to meet standards.
The Department of Education is working with the 9 services now on next steps, which might include suspension or cancellation of their approval to get the Child Care Subsidy.
Child Supervision Rules
Today, the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) will publish the findings of its rapid assessment of child safety practices.
Education Ministers directed ACECQA to undertake this work in August last year.
ACECQA found that the vast majority of services put children and their safety at the centre of everything they do.
It also found that changes made in 2014 created loopholes that a small number of providers have exploited to cut corners and adopt business practices that compromise safe supervision of children.
Education Ministers met on Friday and united to close these loopholes by accepting all of the recommendations and banning the bad business practices that relied on them.
This includes removing "across the service" from the law, closing the loophole created in 2014, and clearly defining the meaning of "adequate supervision".
ACECQA will issue clear advice to all services on compliant practices while changes are made to National Law.
Other measures
A national CCTV trial in centres is now underway, we've tripled fines, compliance officers are doing more unannounced spot checks in centres, and we have banned personal devices in centres.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Education Jason Clare:
"We have to do everything that we can to ensure the safety of our children when they walk or when they're carried through the doors of a childcare centre.
"The National Register will help us track when staff move from centre to centre and state to state.
"Our early educators are the best asset we've got to keep our children safe.
"This training will help give them the skills they need to identify someone who might be up to no good.
"When I introduced this legislation, I said this was about lifting standards up.
"This legislation is now doing this. The threat of cutting off funding has forced centres to act.
"We are doing this all for a reason.
"There is nothing more important than our kids and keeping them safe."
Quotes attributable to Minister for Early Childhood Education, Jess Walsh:
"Today marks a significant step forward in our work to strengthen the early childhood education and care sector.
"This mandatory safety training will give the workforce the support they need to recognise when something isn't right, and to act.
"The new educator register marks a huge change - allowing regulators across the country to see and share critical information to help keep children safe.
"We're also addressing unsafe understaffing practices - accepting all of ACECQA's recommendations in its rapid assessment of staffing practices and banning the bad business practices of misusing 'under the roofline' ratios.
"Educators are our greatest asset in keeping children safe, but they can't do that if they're understaffed.
"And Australian children should have access to quality and safe early learning."
