March 2nd, 2026
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Despite the national authority for Australia's early childhood education and care sector (ACECQA) confirming that "91% of services meeting the National Quality Standard (or higher)" (as published in ACECQA's Q2 2025 NQF Snapshot), the Productivity Commissioner's latest annual Report on Government Services (on 10 February 2026) continues to highlight a very different reality especially for services in New South Wales:
SOURCE: Table 3A.32 of the Productivity Commission's Annual Report on Government Services
For the sixth consecutive year, NSW has the highest number of confirmed breaches compared to any other Australian state or territory. But FY2024/2025 is the first year after five consecutive years where NSW does not have more breaches than the rest of the nation combined!
The latest Report on Government Services also shows that NSW services have dropped to continue to having the third highest probability of attracting breaches:
519.0% (up from 187.9%) probability per NT early childhood education and care service
371.4% (up from 147.7%) probability per ACT early childhood education and care service
307.0% (down from 325.3%) probability per NSW early childhood education and care service
227.3% (up from 146.4%) probability per WA early childhood education and care service
218.4% (up from 202.9%) probability per TAS early childhood education and care service
180.7% (up from 174.6%) probability per QLD early childhood education and care service
145.4% (up from 118.4) probability per VIC early childhood education and care service
122.5% (up from 77.7%) probability per SA early childhood education and care service
What does not make sense is the still starkly low number of enforcements and decision actions that the NSW Regulatory Authority has taken over the same period given NSW's significantly high number of breaches. And this is despite the NSW Regulatory Authority (now the NSW Early Learning Commission) appearing to be making more enforcement and decision actions.
SOURCE: NSW Early Learning Commission's Register of Published Enforcement Actions
Taking the two sets of data into consideration, especially given still the extremely low number of enforcement actions relative to the huge number of breaches in NSW, thankfully these do not appear to translate into a systemic loss of children's safety.
That said, ACA NSW has consistently and overtly been concerned about the increasing workload and burdens on early childhood education and care services.
Moreover, the stresses and morale of services and their educators and teachers upon receiving breaches/non-compliances add toward the loss of vocational satisfaction and the rate of attrition.
ACA NSW has regularly raised this and sought to resolve this with the NSW Department of Education with the view of reaching a mutually acceptable landing on how to balance the NSW Regulatory Authority's regulatory obligations while still ensuring services produce quality and safe outcomes for children.
Instead, the NSW Department of Education provided a written response on 28 March 2024 as follows:
"Jurisdiction comparisons are not advised due to different approaches.
NSW’s approach is to record all areas of non-compliance. This is to enable better data capture to monitor risk trends and patterns and inform our proactive regulatory efforts such as campaigns and communications in order to optimise safety and quality.
A high number of breaches may not necessarily indicate a lower quality of services but may indicate more intensive regulatory practice (for example, more frequent regulatory visits or a higher propensity to investigate complaints). The NSW approach is based on our commitment to safety and quality.
There are also technical reasons as to why breach data is variable and caution should be exercised when comparing across jurisdictions:
1. When a breach is added to the NQA ITS system (at time of breach or at a later stage)
2. Where a breach is recorded (direct to NQA ITS or into an external application)
3. Issuance of guided advice alongside a breach notice or not (approaches are highly variable across jurisdictions)"
The NSW Department of Education also provided another written response on 8 November 2024 that:
"Where services are not following their own documented policies and procedures, a breach is recorded."
In other words, if a NSW-based early childhood education and care service were to include in their own documents outlining policies/procedures that exceed the relevant requirements of the National Quality Framework, National Law, National Regulations and/or any other legal requirement, and did not fulfill them (even though the NSW service was in compliance with the NQF, legal and/or regulatory requirement), the NSW service is likely (if not certainly) to have a breach(es) recorded.
ACA NSW continues to believe that regulatory approaches should be nationally consistent across the nation given the National Quality Framework. All Regulatory Authorities must be cognisant of and immediately respond to the consequences of regulatory workload on services, educators and teachers. And above all, every Regulatory Authority should critically reflect if their own calibration of regulatory activities and practices overtly achieve superior and measurable outcomes for their jurisdiction.
For any further information/clarification, please contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
UPDATED: 12 FEBRUARY 2024, 8 APRIL 2024, 13 FEBRUARY 2025, 2 MARCH 2026
FIRST PUBLISHED: 12 JULY 2023
