Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the Governor-General's address at a time when this parliament opens under the weight of deeply troubling revelations. As we turn our minds to the priorities of a new term, we cannot look past the urgent failures exposed in our childcare system, failures that enabled multiple people now accused of crimes against children to work across childcare centres, undetected, for years, a failure to protect our children. Over recent weeks, Australians have been confronted with horrifying allegations of child sexual abuse in Victorian childcare centres, resulting in the accused being charged with more than 70 offences relating to eight alleged victims aged between five months and two years of age. In my own state of New South Wales, two childcare workers have been charged with assaulting a 17-month-old boy in their care. In Queensland, a 21-year-old man has been charged with one count of indecent treatment of a four-year-old child at a Brisbane childcare centre. This is a systemic failure of child protection, and one we must not turn away from. It deserves not just our outrage but our action.

To the victims and their families, no words will ever be enough to account for what has transpired here. You deserve more than words; you deserve action—action that ensures that no child and no family is ever failed in this way again. We as a parliament are compelled to ask: how can this happen in a system overseen by both state and federal regulators with multiple layers of supposed safeguards? How could a person alleged to have committed such acts be allowed to work across so many childcare centres? Where were the flags, the checks and the safeguards? What must now be done to ensure that this can never happen again?

I want to acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley, for her clear and unequivocal commitment to putting the safety of children above politics and partisanship. As she said at the National Press Club, children's safety must come first. That commitment was reinforced in a letter to the Prime Minister offering the opposition's full cooperation in developing and assessing any legislative changes the government may bring forward. Our shadow education team, led by Senator Jonathon Duniam, and Zoe McKenzie in the other place, are ready to work with the government to ensure our child protection systems are as strong, transparent and accountable as they must be to prevent such things ever happening again. I commend Senator Duniam and Zoe McKenzie for their swift and measured response to these deeply disturbing revelations, acknowledging the scale of trauma involved and calling for an urgent review of our national safeguards. Their leadership has been clear-eyed and focused on solutions. I also wish to acknowledge Senator Leah Blyth, one of my newest colleagues in this place and an already passionate voice for building safer and more resilient communities. In her new role as shadow assistant minister for stronger families and stronger communities, she brings a sharp focus to the systems that are meant to protect our most vulnerable and a deep commitment to ensuring that those systems are worthy of the trust placed in them by Australian families.

One of the most urgent questions before us is whether our current reliance on state based working-with-children checks is truly fit for purpose. These checks must be more than a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise. They cannot be treated as a shield that in practice allows perpetrators to move undetected between centres and jurisdictions. There is scope for government to consider whether these checks should form part of a nationally consistent framework, one that incorporates real-time alerts, mandatory prevention training and seamless interjurisdictional data sharing. While the regulatory responsibility of working-with-children checks rests primarily with states and territories, the Commonwealth is uniquely placed to lead national coordination and drive the changes needed to make early learning centres genuinely safer. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse gave us a clear road map. It is time that we acted upon it. The government should also give serious consideration to the recommendations of the Australian Childhood Foundation, which has called for mandatory child abuse prevention education to be embedded in the working-with-children check itself.

But child safety is not just about vetting workers. It is also about how our systems are structured and whether they are capable of identifying risks, responding to red flags and prioritising the safety of children above all else. This moment demands a broader examination of how the current childcare model is functioning. The system as it stands channels government subsidies almost exclusively towards formal, centre based care, a model that has grown rapidly but not always with sufficient oversight. An investigation by the ABC earlier this month revealed that the childcare worker now charged with serious offences was employed by one of Victoria's largest providers despite previous incidents being reported. These were missed opportunities for intervention at an extraordinary cost to these children and to their families. This is not about casting blame on a provider. Many for-profit and not-for-profit providers do outstanding work. But it is a reminder that rapid growth, fragmented oversight and inconsistent enforcement can create gaps in which serious risks go unnoticed. It is the responsibility of state and federal governments to ensure that no provider, regardless of their structure, is able to operate without meeting the highest standards of safety and accountability.

In light of recent events, a growing movement of Australian parents is calling for meaningful reform. One such group, ForParentsAU, has launched a petition now signed by more than 9,000 Australians urging the government to expand the childcare subsidy to cover a broader range of childcare options, including nannies, au pairs and co-working spaces that support parents and even grandparents. That's because the current system forces families to fit the model rather than building a model that fits the reality of families. At the heart of this is a truth that we don't acknowledge often enough—that much of our economy is sustained by unpaid care labour, most often by women and most often invisible to policy. It's grandparents who adjust their lives to care for their grandchildren, and it's parents who forgo work because the only available child care is so unaffordable or unsuitable. It's the sandwich generation, who juggle their lives to care not only for their own children but also for their ageing parents. These are contributions that our country relies on, but we rarely value them as we should.

Expanding the subsidy in the way these families are calling for would not only deliver flexibility; it would begin to recognise in a tangible way the value of informal care and the unpaid labour that holds up our economy and our communities. This is not about tearing down formal childcare centres. This is about recognising that families deserve choices; that children deserve care arrangements that are safe, trusted and suited to their individual needs; and that policy should reflect the diversity of modern Australian households. This is a reform that deserves serious and urgent consideration by this government.

The evidence is clear. This is not just a call from advocacy groups. This reflects the real preferences of working parents and families, who want change. Polling by YouGov commissioned by the Centre for Independent Studies found that two-thirds of working mothers would accept a lower childcare subsidy if it meant they could use it for informal care from a relative or perhaps a trusted nanny. Nearly half said childcare costs affect how many hours they are able to work. Sixty per cent listed the warmth of caregiving among their top priorities, ranking well above early learning programs or staff credentials. It is worth asking whether our current policy settings reflect what parents truly value and what our children actually need.

As it stands, the childcare subsidy is one size fits all, but Australian families are not. It is time we trusted parents to decide what is best for their children. It is time to recognise that child care, in all its forms, plays a vital role in supporting workforce participation, especially for women. But for too many families the current system is not just expensive but rigid. A more flexible approach to childcare funding wouldn't undermine workforce participation; it would empower women. Women returning to work don't all follow the same path, and children don't all thrive in the same settings. We need a model that allows parents to choose the care that suits their working hours, their cultural context and the individual needs of their family and their child.

As we discuss safety for children in child care, we cannot forget the safety of children at home. Today the ABC reported that homelessness rates, particularly for women and girls, have worsened under the Albanese government's first term due to service underfunding and the lack of affordable housing. The issue has reached its worst levels in living memory, Homelessness Australia said, with analysis of data from homelessness services across the country showing that women and girls fleeing domestic violence are the most affected. The number of people accessing these services each month has increased by 10 per cent since Labor was elected in May 2022. But for women and girls, the data shows that that increase has been 14 per cent. A government that says it stands with women must deliver more than words. It must deliver homes—safe, secure, affordable housing. But for many women the security of safety and a roof over their head is the first act of child protection.

These issues—child safety, childcare choice and housing security—are not peripheral. They go to the heart of what kind of society we are and what kind of future we are building for our children. As the shadow assistant minister for child protection, I know we cannot legislate away evil, but we can and must build robust systems that are worthy of the trust that parents place in them every single day. The government must move swiftly and decisively, but it must also move wisely, with eyes wide open to the lived experiences of Australian families. The opposition stands ready to work constructively on these reforms, but we will not hesitate to speak when the government falls short or when it ignores the voices of parents crying out for change for their children.