What could the new NSW Early Learning Commission be focussing on?

Now that the new NSW Regulatory Authority (ie the NSW Early Learning Commission (NELC))has been operating for the last 2 months (since 1 December 2025), it is worthwhile to observe their conduct and their apparent priorities.

ACA NSW has to date not received any information as to how the NELC will perform differently from its predecessor. However, it is already obvious what some of their focuses could be.

Already, the first NSW long daycare service has been shut down for persistently being rated Working Towards the National Quality Standards since January 2012 despite the NELC admitting there were no serious incidents. This indicates the NELC's potential focus on the 148 NSW-based long daycare services that share similar characteristics to the first service that was shut down.

Another area of focus is more than likely to be the sector's compliance with the NSW Ministerial Guidelines (issued 6 November 2025), compelling services to publicly present their prescribed information. But members will recall the Wheeler Report's discovery that 66.6% of sampled services rated Exceeding were themselves regarded as high risk or very high risk by the then NSW Regulatory Authority. Hence, ACA NSW's tools and templates to assist members to extract information from the NELC that may not be available from the NQAITS portal.

And now that the NSW Ministerial Direction on personal devices came into effect on 6 November 2025, compliance to that is more than likely to be of focus for the NELC.

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

PUBLISHED: 6 FEBRUARY 2026