EARLY CHILDHOOD TRANSPARENCY

HOW WE GOT HERE

In June 2025, after documents were released revealing deeply concerning incidents and practices in NSW early childhood education and care centres, I passed an Assembly motion to release similar documents here in the ACT. By making these documents public, we can gauge the effectiveness of our regulatory system, differentiate the exemplary centres from the providers who are prioritising profit over children’s safety, and determine what reforms are needed to ensure the safety of our children is being put first.

ACT Labor did not support my motion, suggesting it was a waste of public resources. Days before the documents were due to be released in September 2025, they teamed up with the Canberra Liberals to significantly reduce the number of documents captured by the motion and delay the release date to Christmas Eve. This resulted in key pieces of evidence being like witness statements, police reports, and internal investigation documents – which are essential to understanding how centres, ACT Policing, and the regulator have responded to incidents – being withheld from release. 

The almost 2,500 documents that have been released include ministerial briefings about serious incidents, incident reports and complaints made to the regulator (Children’s Education and Care Assurance or CECA), and CECA’s compliance action notices from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2025. More than 50 active cases have been excluded from the release.

Based on what we've learnt from the released documents, and through consultation with the sector and Canberran families over the last six months, I've outlined five initial calls for reform to improve children's safety in our early childhood sector. I'm now continuing to consult on a larger package of potential reforms to take into the Assembly.

ACCESSING THE DOCUMENTS

Each tabled document is being published individually on the ACT Legislative Assembly’s website here. I've reproduced all the compliance notices that have been released, categorised by centre, here on my website.

The documents released interstate have already led to nationwide reforms, including that compliance actions taken against each centre over the last two years are now listed on the federal government’s Starting Blocks website. The website does not provide access, however, to the actual documents, instead encouraging families to contact the relevant centre for further information. For ease of access, you can find compliance action notices from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2025 below.

Centres without any compliance notices are not listed. Please contact my office on [email protected] with any queries.