Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has announced sweeping funding cuts to childcare centres that fail to keep kids safe, in the wake of a man being charged for 70 offences at a Melbourne facility.

Childcare worker Joshua Brown, 26, was arrested over charges related to eight victims who attended a Point Cook childcare centre in Melbourne between April 2022 and January 2023.

A second man, Michael Simon Wilson, was also charged in a separate raft of 45 charges that include rape and possession of child abuse material. It is alleged the two are known to each other.

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Sunrise’s Nat Barr had a tense exchange on Thursday with Clare, who announced that funding would be cut to any centre that failed in its duty to protect children.

“(When) Parliament returns later this month, I’ll introduce a piece of legislation in the first fortnight that will cut funding to childcare centres that aren’t up to scratch when it comes to safety the children,” Clare said.

Sunrise’s Nat Barr confronted federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Thursday, over alleged child abuse which happened in Victoria. Credit: Seven

“The big weapon that the federal government has to wield here is the funding that we provide to childcare centres.

“It equates to about 70 per cent of the funding that runs a centre, and if they’re not keeping our kids safe, then we need to cut-off their funding.

“There’s got to be consequences for this sort of bad behaviour when centres that don’t look after our kids properly.”

Barr pressed Clare on recommendations from the royal commission in 2015.

“We spent millions and millions of dollars on a Royal Commission in 2015, that recommended a national working with children scheme.

“It recommended a national federal office, a national register for childcare workers.

“That was 10 years ago.

“Has the government failed these families?”

Clare admits to failings

In a tense reply, Clare said, “The system has failed these families. If the allegations are proved to be true, then the system has failed these families.

Barr: “What is the system?

“There’s a royal commission; it outlines all this. It gets the experts.

“Our taxpayers’ money pays for it, Jason, and it hands it over with a bow to the government.

“It says this is what you guys need to do. Look, where we are today?”

Clare admitted that reforms have taken too long.

Clare: “The implementation of those reforms has taken too bloody long.

“They need to be accelerated. That’s why I said we need to implement a register for educators in childcare centres.

“It’s why we need to fix the working with children checks.

“That’s work that is led by Attorney-Generals, but it needs to be sped up.

“There’s no point in making excuses here, Nat.

“The families of these kids aren’t interested in excuses.”

‘This is serious’

Clare said he has been in touch with families affected by the alleged acts.

“One of the families is a friend of mine.

“I know how they’re feeling because they’ve rung me and told me.

“I can’t repeat on television what they said to me because there are kids watching.

“But this is serious. I’m determined to act.

“It’s a complicated system but people watching aren’t interested in bloody excuses.

“They’re interested in action. That’s what education ministers must take.”

Slow to act

Barr confronted Clare on the government’s lack of action.

Barr: “Two years ago, under your government, the children’s education and care quality authority, a national independent body, issued a warning they were concerned over the level of vetting being undertaken pre-employment.

“Why didn’t you act on that?”

Clare said, “I had commissioned that agency to conduct a review of child safety and I did that after a paedophile was arrested and convicted in Queensland.

“That’s what led to a number of reforms around mobile phones and mandatory reporting.

“A whole bunch of recommendations that need to be implemented.

“I guess the key point here ... whether we’re talking about working with children checks or anything else, there’s no silver bullet here.

“This work will never be done.

“There will always be people that will try to breakthrough the net and try to get into the system.

“We always got to work on making sure that we find ways to keep them out and keep our kids safe.

“Now, not enough has been done fast enough here.

“I can tell you that I’m determined. That’s why I put this on the agenda of Education Ministers last week.

“We agreed that because of what’s happening in Victoria, but also what’s happening in NSW, after the Four Corners exposé earlier this year and what has happened in Queensland, we need to bring together all of these recommendations and implement them.”

Phone ban

Barr grilled him on the phone ban, which was only enforced last July.

Victorian childcare centres are also implementing it from September, and it is voluntary.

“The ban was put in the national code last July,” said Clare.

“Most centres have implemented it. The tortuous nature of the system means it needs to be put into regulations that happen in a couple of months’ time.

“Victoria is making sure that that happens sooner than that.

“But all of the advice that we’ve received from experts is you have to get the personal mobile phones and any digital devices that workers have out of the centre.

“The only photographs that you should receive of your children from the centre should be from the authorised centre-owned camera.

“That’s the advice we got. We got it for a reason. We’re implementing it.”