15 months after opposing independent MLA Thomas Emerson’s push to release regulatory documents about child safety breaches in Canberra’s early childhood education and care centres, the ACT Government has announced it is developing a public register of such documents.

The announcement was included in the Government’s response, tabled yesterday, to an Assembly motion moved by Mr Emerson in February calling for a significant package of reforms to improve children’s safety in the early childhood sector.

Mr Emerson has been hosting the regulatory compliance documents he got released through the Assembly on his website to provide transparency for families considering which centre to choose for their children. He welcomed the news that the ACT’s early childhood regulator, Children’s Education and Care Assurance (CECA), would create a new website of its own to provide this function for families moving forward.

”Families deserve to know the safety record of early learning centres they’re considering for their children,” Mr Emerson said.

”This is a huge win for transparency. We should have ready access to the information we need to make informed choices about the education and care of our children.”

Mr Emerson said improved transparency will elevate compliance standards across the sector, rewarding the efforts of high-quality providers while weeding out dodgy operators that prioritise profit ahead of children.

“Every parent and carer deserves to know that when they drop their children off in the morning, their safety, wellbeing and growth will be put first,” Mr Emerson said.

Mr Emerson also welcomed the $8.9 million staffing boost for CECA in this year’s Territory Budget.

”Strong regulations aren’t much use if you’ve got a weak regulator, so I’m really pleased that the ACT Government has agreed to increase resourcing for our early childhood regulator,” Mr Emerson said.

”We’re already seeing CECA taking stronger action, with multiple suspension notices having been recently issued to centres with long histories of child safety breaches.”

“I’ve consistently called for the regulator to be better resourced, and it’s fantastic to see a more than 50 per cent increase in staffing levels for CECA over the forward estimates.”

In responding to some of the other reforms called for in Mr Emerson’s motion, the ACT Government has confirmed:

• the next phase of its early childhood strategy will have a renewed focus on child safety;

• Education Ministers are working together nationally to revise educator-to-child ratios, including addressing the ‘under the roof’ loophole;

• it is committed to building early childhood education and care centres run by not-for-profit providers alongside all new ACT public primary schools while exploring further measures to increase the number of not-for-profit services in the ACT and to safeguard their viability against for-profit providers;

• the regulator is working with other early childhood regulators across the country to keep providers with poor track records from taking over more centres through service approval transfers; and

• more resourcing for the regulator will enable a significant increase in the frequency of audits and quality assessments at Canberra’s early childhood education and care centres. 

Mr Emerson expressed concern, however, at the ACT Government’s lack of progress on some elements of his reform package, with the Government confirming it is still unable to issue fines for providers that breach the National Law, in part because the ACT is the only jurisdiction in the country without a fine enforcement agency. The ACT also remains the only state or territory without an online portal for verifying Working With Vulnerable People cards, and the Government does not intend to develop this capability.

“I’ll keep pushing the Government to hold dodgy operators to account while being more proactive in safeguarding the viability of the many fantastic early learning providers and educators that our community relies on every day,” Mr Emerson said.

“Canberrans deserve a system that supports educators to provide our kids with the highest quality education and care in the country.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Will Devine | 0402 183 296 | [email protected]

BACKGROUND:  

In February 2026, Mr Emerson introduced a motion calling on the ACT Government to adopt a package of 13 reforms to address regulatory failures in the early childhood education and care sector. 

Yesterday afternoon, the Government tabled a progress update responding to the motion, which is available here.

The motion included 13 measures, including establishing a public register of regulatory enforcement actions related to child safety breaches, exploring options to cap centres’ surplus revenue to ensure sufficient investment back into the workforce, establishing an online portal for verifying Working With Vulnerable People card numbers, updating the ACT's early childhood strategy with a renewed focus on child safety; and more. The reform package was shaped by consultation with families, educators and sector representatives, along with the findings of a community survey conducted by Mr Emerson. It was supported by Early Childhood Australia, who contributed to its development.

This came on the back of Mr Emerson’s push last year to release thousands of CECA’s compliance documents, which revealed disturbing cases of child abuse, inadequate supervision and regulatory failure in parts of Canberra’s early childhood sector.