Senate Education and Employment References Committee - Melbourne, VIC (part 2 of 2)
17 February 2026
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Senate Education and Employment References Committee Australian Parliament
00:00 - 00:37
Speaker 1
How can government design stronger safety oversight for flexible and in home care without recreating the rigid institutional framework that already has shown to at times struggle to protect children, even though that is absolutely for, you know, most, you know, childcare educators and, you know, for most people in that sector. That is what they want to do. They want to protect and care for children. Can you give us some insights on what you think or how you think that might work based on the information that you're getting from parents?
00:37 - 02:14
Speaker 6
Well, I think, obviously, safety is absolutely critical. It really has to be at the heart of any policy design, and we've seen... You know, that's the reason that we're here today with devastating impacts when safety is not, you know, achieved. So it's absolutely critical. I think what's important is making sure that parents have the ability to choose the safest model for their child.
And having this option, this model really adds a layer of safety in there because parents can look at the options that they've got before them in their particular circumstances and look at, well, of the three centers that are in my area, two have long wait lists. One is available, but I'm very concerned for various reasons about high turnover of staff, poor corporate culture. You know, I'm handing my child over to a different person every time I drop them off, you know, those kinds of things. And then on the other hand, look at what options they've got outside of that. Is it, you know, a loving grandmother who lives nearby or a long term nanny that they've had with their other children and that they'd be keen to keep using?
So parents can look at everything that's available, consider their own individual circumstances, and then make the choice that is the safest for their child in their circumstances, because we can't say that one model is best for anyone. Really varies and depends on their life. So I think that's a really fundamental kind of additional layer of safety that would come about because of an expansion of choice in the way that we've proposed.
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