The past few weeks have been an incredibly challenging time for everyone working in education and care.

Community Child Care Association (CCC) is focused on how we can support our members to continue to deliver high quality education and care to children and families. We are continuing our intensive advocacy to governments, ensuring we are shaping major reform on behalf of community providers.

What can providers do now to support children and families?

• Services and the families they support can access support via a dedicated Victorian Government website and advice line: 1800 791 241 (open 7 days a week, 8am to 9pm weekdays and 8am to 5pm weekends). The list of affected services is also available on this website.
• Affected families are eligible for a $5,000 Immediate Needs Payment
• CCC member services can also contact our member hotline for assistance on (03) 9486 3455 or email us at reception@cccinc.org.au.

CCC’s advocacy to state and federal governments

CCC’s mission is to ensure all governments prioritise the most effective reforms that will protect children’s safety. We can’t ‘enforce’ our way to a child safe system – prevention and increased quality are key.

If state and federal governments want genuine improvements in the safety and quality of education and care, ministers must prioritise two key reforms:

Firstly, regulators must be resourced to deliver the frequency of monitoring, compliance, assessment and ratings that will effectively uphold the National Quality Standard.

Secondly, governments must invest in services that prioritise quality. A safe system is based on high quality, but quality does not happen by chance.

Community providers are proven to prioritise quality by investing in a qualified workforce and offering services that reflect the values, cultural identify and needs of local families. This is the basis for delivering the full benefits of education and care for children, families and our broader community.

CCC is working intensively with state and federal ministers on our effective plan to drive an urgent uplift in quality and safety across our sector. This includes prioritising key actions from ACEQCA’s Review of Child Safety Arrangements under the National Quality Framework, including:

• Mandatory high quality annual training for all staff on child protection and child safety
• Increasing funding for state regulators to assess and rate all services at least every three years
• Establishing an ‘approved administrator’ model to remove consistently underperforming providers without disrupting services to children and families.

We will continue to work intensively with state and federal governments to create the safe high quality system that children and families need.

Key announcements from state and federal governments

Here is a summary of recent announcements by state, territory and federal governments on child safety reforms:

Victorian Government

• The Victorian Premier has commissioned an urgent review into child safety in early childhood education and care settings and the Working with Children Check in Victoria, led by Jay Weatherill AO and Pamela White PSM, due to report by 15 August 2025
• Services will be required to adopt a ban on personal devices by Friday 26 September, or face consequences, including potential fines of $50,000 if they breach the license
• The Victorian Government will introduce an early childhood educator registration scheme to track employment history and patterns
• The Victorian Regulator will receive additional funding for increased assessment, rating and compliance actions.

New South Wales Government

• In late June 2025, the NSW Government published the independent Wheeler Review into the NSW Department of Education as the NSW Regulatory Authority for early childhood education and care
• The NSW Government announced it will strengthen laws, increase fines for poor quality operators and require the publication of safety and performance records, as part of an immediate package of reforms to improve transparency and rebuild trust in the early childhood education and care sector. This includes:
  • A new standalone regulatory agency, independent of the NSW Department of Education, with stronger powers which will report directly to the Minister
  • Childcare providers and services under investigation for breaches of the National Law will be required to notify families and disclose that an investigation is underway following significant breaches of the National Law, and the steps being taken to address them
  • In circumstances where an active criminal investigation is underway, families will be notified as soon as possible while protecting the integrity of criminal investigations
  • A new Ministerial Direction will mandate the Regulatory Authority publish all relevant detailed information about service quality and safety performance, to the extent allowed under the National Law, to help parents make informed decisions
  • Proposed changes to the Children (Education and Care Services) National Law (NSW) include an increase to the penalties for breaches by individuals and services
  • NSW will amend the National Law to place children’s safety as a ‘paramount consideration’ provision, ensuring child safety is at the heart of ECEC
  • When safety concerns arise, the Regulator may require installation of CCTV cameras controlled by the Regulatory Authority, with footage able to be reviewed to assist with investigating complaints and concerns .
• The NSW Government will also contribute to the current parliamentary inquiry into the state’s early childhood education and care sector. 

National Cabinet

• State, territory and federal education ministers announced next steps for national quality and safety reforms on 27 June including:
  • Significantly increasing penalties where providers are non-compliant with National Law and improving and enhancing information provided to parents
  • Strengthening regulatory responses to poor quality early childhood education and care service delivery through increased information sharing, oversight and regulatory action, especially for providers who operate across jurisdictions; this includes expanding joint compliance monitoring under the National Law and Family Assistance Law
  • Increasing the availability, transparency and national consistency of compliance and safety data, through publishing more information about the full suite of state and territory regulatory compliance activities
  • Strengthening market entry gateways to the education and care sector to deter providers who do not have children’s best interests at heart, including assessment of a provider’s track record for service application approvals
  • Enhancing fitness and propriety testing, and regulatory practice to increase scrutiny on persons with management or control, which includes the use of targeted online testing
• State, territory and federal Attorneys-General will meet in August to examine improving criminal record checks and the criminal record check system. 

Federal Government

• In March 2025, the Federal Government announced new Commonwealth regulatory and enforcement powers to deal with providers that put profit over quality and child safety at risk by exploring measures to:
  • Prevent providers who persistently fail to meet minimum standards and repetitively breach the National Law from opening new Child Care Subsidy approved services
  • Take compliance action against existing providers with egregious and continued breaches, including the option to cut off access to Child Care Subsidy funding where appropriate
  • Strengthen powers to deal with providers that pose an integrity risk
  • Stronger cross-sector banning order arrangements to stop people who have breached safety and quality standards in one part of the care economy from operating in other care sectors
• In June 2025, Minister Clare and Early Education Minister Walsh announced stronger mandatory child safety measures including:
  • Mandatory 24 hour reporting of any allegations, complaints or incidents of physical or sexual abuse – down from the current 7 day window
  • A ban on vapes in all early education and care services
  • Stronger protections around digital technology use, with services required to have clear policies on taking photos and videos of children, parent consent, CCTV practice and using service-issued devices
• In late July 2025, Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare will introduce legislation to remove the funding of early education and care services that persistently fail to meet National Quality Standards
  • Providers that are not meeting minimum standards will not be permitted to open new services
  • The Federal Department of Education will have new powers to investigate fraud and child safety in services, including the ability to do unannounced spot checks.
• From 1 January 2026, child safety will be explicitly embedded into the National Quality Standard
• ACECQA will issue new guidance and resource materials to support the early education sector implement these changes.

Western Australian Government

• The WA Government has announced a snap review into the rules and regulations governing the state’s childcare sector, including Working with Children Checks and police clearances.