NSW Parliament's Call for and Release of Government Documents ... and how you can respond

Following the recent Four Corners broadcast, ACA NSW members would have heard about the NSW Parliament agreeing to the release of a number of internal government documents (including communications between the NSW Regulatory Authority and 25 particular early childhood education and care Approved Providers), under the NSW Legislative Council's Standing Order 52 (SO52).

There are legitimate concerns that the release of such documents may reveal information about individual children as well as services' details and educators'/teachers' identities in relation to ongoing criminal proceedings.

Despite such concerns, the NSW Parliamentary request was given legal support by their independent legal arbiter (the Hon Keith Mason AC KC) 

Essentially, the independent legal arbiter's published view is essentially that there are sufficient safeguards protecting the necessary information (eg redaction of text) and all other information requested are not privileged.

ACA NSW's understanding is that the names of children, families and educators would normally be redacted (ie blocked out from public view). However, the names of the Approved Providers and their Nominated Supervisors that relate to any of the following are unlikely to be redacted due to their regulatory responsibilities:

• cancellation, suspension or to discontinue approval of a service provider;

• enforceable undertakings;

• suspected, alleged or actual criminal conduct (including fraud), reportable incidents or allegation or risk of significant harm incidents;

• offences of failing to notify certain circumstances or information, or failing to keep enrolment and other documents, as required by the National Law;

• inappropriate discipline or using an inappropriate person;

• exposing of children to harm and/or hazards;

• reports or notifications to the Office of Children's Guardian of reportable allegations against staff, volunteers or contractors;

• reportable incidents to the National Quality Agenda IT System; and

• prosecutions of early childhood providers and educators.

Due to the NSW Parliament's own obligations to observe privacy legislation as well as not jeopardise police investigations, the release of documents normally obliges them to be within the confines of the NSW Parliament and not to be in the public domain. But once tabled (ie made public), such documents will be available on the NSW Parliament's website.

It is worth noting that the early childhood education and care sector's National Law includes legal obligation for the disclosure of information to others, including:

• Section 271 - Disclosure of information to other authorities

• Section 272 - Disclosure of information to education and care services

• Section 273 - Duty of confidentiality

Notwithstanding, whenever any documents or information are subsequently made public by the NSW Parliament and cause potential (reputational/defamatory) harm/injury to cited individuals and entities, those impacted have a legal Right of Reply to respond and have it published in the parliamentary Hansard (which is also publicly available).

Assuming parliamentary processes have been adhered to, court injunctions and defamation suits are unlikely to be successful.

WHAT HAVE BEEN RELEASED SO FAR?

The indices of the documents that have been delivered to the NSW Parliament can be found in its published Tabled Papers and Reports.

For easier reference, members and services can search through the documents that have thus far been delivered to the NSW Parliament via the following indices:

• documents delivered on 11 April 2025 made public;
  

• documents delivered on 3 April 2025 made public; 

• documents delivered on 3 April 2025 that remain privileged (ie not available for the public);

• documents delivered on 26 March 2025 made public;

• documents delivered on 26 March 2025 that remain privileged;

• documents delivered on 19 March 2025 made public;

• documents delivered on 19 March 2025 that remain privileged; and

• documents delivered on 12 March 2025 made public.

SHOULD YOU WANT TO CORRECT RECORDS HELD BY THE NSW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ...

Nevertheless, should you wish to take proactive steps to discover the entire set of breaches/non-compliance information the NSW Regulatory Authority has recorded about your service, and would like to pursue correcting it, you can download and follow ACA NSW's suggested template and process to retrieve, address, amend/challenge their service's own records held by the NSW Department of Education.

ACA NSW has also written to the NSW Deputy Premier to share our concerns about inaccurate records 

For any further information/clarification, please contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.

LAST UPDATED: 11 APRIL 2025, 31 MARCH 2025
​FIRST PUBLISHED: 27 MARCH 2025