As the public outcry from educators and parents intensifies in the wake of Four Corners' investigation into Australia's broken childcare system, the reluctance of senior politicians responsible for overseeing the sector to do something to fix it is striking.

While the federal Greens have joined the growing calls for a royal commission into the system, the prime minister's response epitomised a serious flaw in the sector: a cycle of blame-shifting between state and federal governments instead of real action.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged the Four Corners revelations, calling them "of deep concern," but when pressed on the issue, he handballed responsibility to the states.

"State governments look after the regulation," he said, adding "I'm sure that state governments will have a look at what has been revealed [on Four Corners]."

A lack of political will 

Next came Albanese's swift rejection of the growing calls for a royal commission: "People call for royal commissions whenever anything comes out immediately. They take years, they cost a lot of money. You do not need a royal commission to show that what was shown on TV last night was wrong."

Anne Aly, the federal minister responsible for child care, came out on Tuesday afternoon and parroted similar talking points to Albanese's but added that she had asked the head of the quality standards for child care for ways to improve quality and safety in child care.

This is less than the Productivity Commission recommended in a report released more than six months ago, which recommended an independent review of the National Quality Framework to improve assessment and quality ratings of child care centres.

Under the current scheme, all childcare centres must be rated, but 10 per cent have never been rated. And those that have been rated, on average, have not been reassessed for four years. Some centres in South Australia have not been reassessed for up to nine years.

The report said the resources provided for regulators to carry out assessment and rating visits "do not seem to be sufficient to allow for the current number of operating services to be assessed in a reasonable timeframe".

Reports of serious incidents missing 

Four Corners exposed the corporatisation of Australia's childcare sector, where profit often outweighs care.

Using national data, it revealed how the shift had come at the expense of quality.

In the past three years, serious incidents have risen 27 per cent to 26,000, including serious injuries, trauma, ambulances called at childcare centres and children going missing.

Given serious incidents are chronically under-reported, this is an alarming trend.

It coincides with the growing dominance of the for-profit sector, which now accounts for almost three-quarters of long day care. Of the 300 to 400 new childcare centres opening each year, a staggering 95 per cent are for-profit.

The rise of for-profit operators coincides with increasing government subsidies to the sector. In the past year, the federal government allocated more than $14 billion in childcare subsidies and state governments spent billions in grants.

This coupled with regulation that is not fit for purpose, is letting parents and their children down.

Former corporate lawyer and current NSW Greens politician Abigail Boyd has been trying to expose the industry's secrets for months.

"Nobody wants people to know what's actually going on," Boyd says. 

In November, Boyd invoked a Standing Order 52 (SO52) — a powerful parliamentary order to force the release of internal departmental documents to scrutinise the regulator's handling of breaches in the childcare sector.

She requested incident reports detailing injuries, neglect, abuse and safety hazards, along with the regulator's responses.

"I wanted to see for myself exactly how effective the regulator was in making sure that these places were fit to send our children to."

The department and government have been pushing back.

"It has been five months trying to get this information," Boyd said.

"Other states make this information public."

On Tuesday afternoon, Boyd passed a censure motion calling for the release of the documents.

The government now has 14 days to comply and release the files or face further sanction.

Boyd has seen some of the documents, which are sitting in privilege boxes, and wants them released publicly.

"If the public had even the slightest idea of how horrendous these incidents are in a lot of these centres, there would be an absolute uproar. And they don't wanna have to deal with that. They don't wanna have to deal with the angry parents wanting to know why they weren't told earlier that these things were happening at the places they're leaving their children," she said.

The brutal reality is there are good centres and good educators — but finding good-quality care is getting harder.

It's why a royal commission or public inquiry is important, to expose systemic failures, hold those responsible to account and deliver enforceable recommendations for real reform.

Without it, we risk a continuation of motivated ignorance by governments to address the real problems.

Read more in the full article on the ABC's website.

Source: Adele Ferguson, ABC News, "As calls intensify for a royal commission into child care, senior politicians are reluctant to take action", published 19 March 2025, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-19/childcare-royal-commission-anthony-albanese-anne-aly/105066706