Response to Senate Inquiry Recommendations on Early Childhood Education and Care Safety

Melbourne, April, 2026 – Australian Childhood Foundation welcomes the Senate Inquiry’s focus on improving child safety in early childhood education and care. The report points to serious problems with information-sharing, oversight and workforce capability that continue to put children at risk.

However, the Inquiry also highlights a major gap: the lack of national coordination of Working With Children Checks (WWCC).

WWCCs are the main safeguard relied on by families, educators and services. Yet Australia still has eight different systems, with different standards, limited information-sharing and no clear national approach to child-safety training.

This is an area where the federal government needs to take the lead.

Only the Commonwealth can bring these systems together and make sure everyone working with children meets a consistent minimum standard for safety and training.

Linking mandatory child-safety training to the WWCC is a practical step that could make a real difference. Without national coordination, different versions of training may develop across the country, with varying quality.

It has now been more than a year since the Foundation met with the Attorney-General to raise these issues, and there has been no clear progress toward a more consistent national system.

We have also heard nothing further on funding for the Second Action Plan under the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse. Time is ticking, without federal leadership, states risk moving ahead alone, creating even more fragmentation instead of a coordinated national approach.

We call on the Commonwealth to:

• Work with states and territories to align WWCC systems
• Introduce consistent child-safety training as part of the WWCC
• Fund the training so costs are not passed on to workers or services
• Improve information-sharing between police, regulators and WWCC systems

The Senate Inquiry has made it clear that risks to children remain. A consistent national approach is needed.

Families need to know that every adult working with children, anywhere in Australia, meets the same standard of safety.

Media enquiries:

Gina Dafalia
PR and Communications
Phone: 0447558195
Email: gdafalia@childhood.org.au