A Canberra mother whose son was abused by a childcare worker has condemned the ACT Government’s decision to narrow the scope of documents it will produce relating to serious incidents in the early childhood education sector.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr stated the order was costing the Territory $74,000 per fortnight to work through, with 18 to 20 full-time equivalent public servants assigned to the task.
But he still wanted provider internal investigation documents, provider policy/procedures and internal incident/injury/illness records to be produced.
“My concern is that supporting the Chief Minister’s proposed reduced scope unamended completely undermines the purpose of the motion,” Mr Emerson said.
He argued he wanted to find out if the regulator was working effectively in “keeping our children safe”, and that providing final compliance notices without being able to compare that with internal provider investigations would make it difficult to “figure out what’s going on with poorer providers”.
“Reducing the evidence used [by the regulator] to make these decisions, removing that from the public record, is not helpful,” Mr Emerson argued.
Read the article here: https://region.com.au/act-government-accused-of-disturbing-disregard-for-transparency-by-mother-of-boy-abused-at-childcare-centre/906242/