CAMERON MILNER: If governments want to improve safety standards in child care, there’s a simple solution

There’s a simple fix to the childcare crisis in Australia: put the power and the money back in parents’ hands.

Rivers of gold flow from taxpayers to for-profit childcare centres which offer scarce places to desperate families.

Parents aren’t the client; it’s the Government that is the true client of childcare operators.

The sector’s ultra-close relationship with the Labor-affiliated United Workers Union buys the industry political muscle and protection.

The sector knows well how to manage upwards to the source of funds through its army of lobbyists and spin doctors. If only the same attention was paid to the children in their centres.

Centres need to serve the children in their care and the parents who pay the bills.

The childcare industry in Australia has long been a slush bucket of Government money. And now, pockets are alleged to have been a paedophile playground.

Governments, both State and Federal, are still doing too little to protect our youngest citizens from both potential abuse or neglect in these taxpayer-funded centres.

Australia has standards, so why can’t they equally be applied to the childcare sector?

The vast majority of Australian families have taxpayers stump up 90 per cent of the fee to send one kid to child care, and 95 per cent of the fee for subsequent children in the system.

It’s been easy money for substandard centres which fail to properly monitor those who are being employed to look after your kids.

No wonder the sector is now being shown to have massively failed our children.

Last year, a Queensland childcare worker was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and abuse of 73 victims, mostly little girls in his care. For almost 20 years, he worked in the childcare system, his crimes undetected.

And in Victoria, a man has been charged with the alleged abuse of eight children, some as young as five months. The man had worked across 20 childcare centres, and 1200 children have been advised to undergo STI testing. It is just sickening.

And what has been the response of the alleged abuser’s for-profit employer? To defend the system and claim that it was already subject to strict regulation, including in staff-to-child ratios.

Finally, politicians, motivated by their instinct for self-preservation, have moved top the side of parents, rather than corporate profiteers.

Some long overdue changes have been announced, though they barely scratch the surface of what is required.

Recommendations made in 2017 by the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse still have not been carried out in full.

In March, Anthony Albanese dismissed calls for another royal commission into the childcare industry.

The sector is heavily unionised, with the powerful leftist UWU growing fat on its continued growth.

The union has a vested interest in keeping training standards low as more money pours in.

The United Workers Union says they have 150,000 members in the sector. That’s an awful lot of power at ALP conferences and money to spend on marginal seat campaigns from just one sector alone.

They say to understand power, just follow the money.

So, what reforms have been announced by Labor? Certainly none to cause too much upset among the profiteers or the union powerbrokers.

Education Minister Jason Clare, a genuinely decent person, has announced all he’s been allowed to announce.

Staff can no longer vape at work but will still be allowed to take pictures of kids in their care on private phones, if the centres allow it.

This is what is regarded as reform? No wonder paedophiles are drawn to the sector.

By contrast, teachers have strict rules around taking photos and how they interact with students. They are true professionals, having undertaken multi-year training at university.

Australia has standards, so why can’t they equally be applied to the childcare sector?

With yet another allegation of sickening sexual abuse of so many children, Labor governments can’t afford not to act decisively. If Albanese could stand up to the CFMEU surely he can stand up to his factional powerbase in the United Workers Union for the sake of vulnerable children.

But before anything else, we need to put the power back in the hands of parents.

The childcare subsidy should go to parents directly. They should be able to choose how it’s best spent on their child.

Childcare reform will only occur when the sector manages its relationship with parents, not just their relationship with governments and union.

The money and the power should be returned to the parents of Australia.