The childcare industry, entrusted with the care of 1.4 million children in Australia, is increasingly prioritising profits over safety.
Parents are paying as much as $220 a day, or more than $1,000 a week, to a $20 billion-a-year sector riddled with systemic failures, a rising number of serious incidents and a troubling culture of secrecy.
Now, in a six-month Four Corners investigation, whistleblowers, workers, parents and experts are revealing the urgent need for reform.
In 2023, Muhammad Ali was convicted of indecently touching Emily’s son and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He will be released in May.
Court documents reveal that prior to joining the centre, he was unemployed twice due to drug use.
His case highlights a growing issue within the sector: where the often urgent need to fill vacancies due to a chronic staff shortage can outweigh proper safety checks and balances.
Two months after Ali was arrested, the centre was quietly sold and rebranded, yet many of the staff remained.
Four Corners’ analysis of national data reveals a troubling surge in serious incidents — more than 26,000 cases in 2024, a 27 per cent jump in three years.
These incidents can include deaths, serious injuries, trauma or illness, missing children and allegations of sexual, physical or emotional abuse.
Every day, at least seven children go missing, are not accounted for, or are locked out of centres — a 49 per cent increase in three years. Each year, more than 3,000 babies and toddlers are sent to hospital with injuries sustained in child care.
On average, there is one report a day of sexual misconduct or sexual offences in Victorian, West Australian and NSW childcare centres. In Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia, there is no reportable conduct scheme.
Australia’s childcare sector is increasingly dominated by private operators, where profit often outweighs care.
This shift, Professor Gabrielle Meagher warns, comes at the expense of quality. A leading expert on privatised social services, she points to the overwhelming evidence showing that for-profit providers deliver lower-quality services on average compared with their non-profit equivalents.
Of the 300 to 400 new childcare centres opening each year, a staggering 95 per cent are for-profit, with only one of the country’s 10 largest daycare operators being non-profit. The rest are controlled by private equity firms, publicly listed companies and international investment groups, all driven by profit rather than child welfare.
An Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report from December 2023 found that for-profit providers paid lower wages and hired less-experienced staff than their non-profit equivalents, leading to a decline in the quality of standards.
[Ed: Why does the report deflect from the more direct reason for the rise in sexual abuse claims being linked to the increase in the use of male staff in childcare?]