Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I made some remarks about the issue of child care, particularly private child care, and the necessity for private child-care operators to abide by state government regulations, just as age care operators need to. Commonwealth rebates are paid to child-care operators on the same basis that operators in age care receive money from the Commonwealth: that they will abide by the laws for the protection of children and will run their centres in a proper way.

According to an article in the Melbourne Herald Sun by Russell Robinson, who conducted a long and commendable investigation, Mr Eddie Groves of the ABC Learning Centres has taken extraordinary steps to prevent scrutiny in the Victorian Supreme Court of his centres, particularly one at Hoppers Crossing where a child walked out into the street. These kinds of events are routine and normal incidents that sometimes unfortunately happen at child-care centres. Of course, one expects organisations like the Department of Human Services in Victoria to investigate these incidents because, for the sake of the safety of young children in their care, we do not want them to happen again.

The federal government cannot be all around Australia observing and monitoring what is happening at individual child-care centres. We have agencies in the various states who are there to see that these kinds of incidents do not happen and that, if they do, measures are taken to stop their recurrence. DHS do a routine report on an incident such as a child being left in a centre overnight. As well as this particular case in Hoppers Crossing, there are two other cases involving ABC Learning in Bendigo and in Jolimont in East Melbourne. ABC Learning incurred a $200 fine in the Sunshine Magistrates Court when the company was found criminally liable when a two-year-old boy wandered off from its Hoppers Crossing centre.

The normal course of events is that you allow the Department of Human Services to come and do their routine investigation, they see that procedures are put in place so that it will not happen again and the centre continues to operate. By taking these three cases to the Victorian Supreme Court, ABC Learning seems to be defying the assumption of Commonwealth government funding that centres will abide by the law. Furthermore, the implication in the case in the Victorian Supreme Court is, as I understand it, that Mr Groves denies his responsibility, as the corporate head of this organisation, for these incidents and wants to see the onus placed on the management of the individual centre.

This is not good enough. Neither side of parliament has any objection to private child-care centres receiving rebates from the federal government, but we expect them to abide by the law. It is outrageous for Mr Groves to be using his financial power in the Victorian Supreme Court, where I understand he spent $400,000 contesting a $200 fine, to set a precedent so he will not be affected by the interference, so-called, of the Department of Human Services in his child-care centres. This is not good enough. He has made the judgment that, to avoid the bureaucracy and the investigations of the Department of Human Services, which are routine regulatory investigations into incidents which can happen at private or community based centres, it is worth while for him to incur this huge legal expense and the odium of all this public comment in the Herald Sun and the Sydney Morning Herald and this parliament. It is not good enough.

This is a disgraceful evasion of responsibility by a company which is making large profits from the Commonwealth government rebates by running centres which parents have little choice about using in many suburbs. My electorate is typical of urban areas across Australia where working families, despite their relatively high incomes, cannot access quality child care. The cost of child care in Australia has risen tenfold since 1990, yet we have long waiting lists even in affluent areas. Many parents who want and need to work cannot do so because they cannot access child care. This government has been negligent in identifying and addressing these needs, and in my view we will have to stop, or look at the issue of, rebating money to Mr Groves and ABC Learning unless he abides by— (Time expired)