The Victorian Greens are calling for an Independent Early Childhood Safety Watchdog saying that a proper oversight body for transparency and accountability is vital to rebuilding trust with families who have been failed for too long by our broken childcare system.
The Greens are proposing an Independent Early Childhood Safety Watchdog with powers to monitor, audit, and investigate how the Department of Education regulates safety standards in childcare - holding it to account when it fails, exposing systemic risks, and ensuring children's safety can never be compromised by profit or bureaucracy.
Currently, the Department of Education decides itself whether the centres it funds are safe - holding responsibility for both funding and regulation, which is a clear conflict of interest identified by the Victorian Ombudsman.
The Greens proposal aligns with calls from child safety experts, the Victorian Ombudsman, and recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which all highlight the urgent need for independent oversight to protect children.
Recent announcements regarding Working With Children Checks, phone bans and stronger reporting are welcome but without an independent watchdog there's no oversight of compliance or enforcement for these changes.
The Greens have written to the Ministers for Children and Education, urging them to work with us to establish a system that ensures transparency, accountability and that child safety is prioritised above all else.
As stated by the Victorian Greens spokesperson for Early Childhood, Anasina Gray-Barberio:
"Like so many, my heart is broken this week. This needs to be a reckoning for the Labor Government which right now marks its own homework on whether the centres they fund are safe.
The system is broken. Childcare shouldn't be something you can trade on the share market, and while services are driven by profit, there is a risk that cutting corners will be prioritised over children's safety.
That's why the first vital step is a truly independent watchdog with real powers to expose failures, drive action, and ensure every centre meets the standards so that children's safety is always the priority, not profits and cost cutting."
