March 18th, 2025
Latest News
Along with the families of those children who were victims as well as affected early childhood educators and teachers, ACA NSW members and we share the same extreme anger, disgust, horror and sickening feelings following what was televised by Four Corners last night.
It is worth noting that all those child safety incidents had previously been reported to the relevant government departments and did not involve any ACA members.
Nevertheless, ACA NSW is always cognisant that the vast majority of early childhood education and care services provide and deliver more than what are required by the National Quality Framework, the National Law, the National Regulations and, most importantly, the expectations of parents and families of children they educate and care for.
Moreover, NSW has the highest proportion of small-to-medium sized family-owned early childhood education and care services than any other Australian state.
The Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) (as the national authority) publicly stated that "91 percent of services meet or exceed the National Quality Standard", and (as of 1 March 2025) 94.6% of services has a quality rating meeting National Quality Standards or higher for Quality Area 2 - Children's Health & Safety.
ACA NSW members will also recall that the NSW Productivity Commissioner confirmed that NSW early childhood education and care services must maintain requirements that are higher than the National Quality Standards.
Yet, for many years, ACA NSW has been overtly engaging governments about:
the unbelievable number of breaches in NSW (especially over the last 5 years);
the services' publicly available Quality Ratings;
the extremely low level of enforcement and actions;
the framework of protecting children; and
ensuring that whistleblowers are protected.
ACA NSW looks forward to the NSW Deputy Premier's independent review and all proper scrutiny, particularly to ensure that all children are protected, including from systemic weaknesses and failures as well as ineffective decisions.
It is our and our sector's natural values to want to ensure that all children are given the best start possible for the rest of their lives, and a profession that all early childhood educators and teachers can be unreservedly proud of.
ACA NSW did make ourselves available to the media today but was unsuccessful thus far in receiving airtime.
For any further information/clarification, please contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
PUBLISHED: 18 MARCH 2025
