Four corners have uncovered systemic failures in Australia’s 20- billion dollar a year childcare industry, as well as shocking claims of injury, neglect and even child abuse. Advocates say for-profit providers - fuelled by government subsidies are cutting corners for profit, while regulators turn a blind eye.
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TVTranscript
00:00Yeah, we wanted to find just why this sector is in crisis.
00:06And what we found is it's dominated by the for-profits, and what I mean by that is private
00:12equity, investment bankers, property developers, real estate agents who aren't necessarily
00:18putting children first, they're there to make a quick buck.
00:22And so when their profit margins are shrinking, they'll look to cut corners.
00:26Profit can be on incentives, bonus incentives, in order to keep costs down.
00:33Tell us how is this industry regulated and how often does that occur?
00:36Yeah, so this is one of the problems.
00:38Because there is $14 billion of government subsidies that are pouring into the sector,
00:43a lot of private enterprise has gone in, which is fine if you have a regulatory system which
00:49is watching them.
00:50And unfortunately what we've found is the state-based regulators can be missing in action,
00:57and it varies from state to state, which is a real worry.
01:00What were the more disturbing stories you heard in this?
01:04One of the most chilling stories was a childcare centre called Jumpstart, privately operated,
01:11and the parent, the mother we spoke to, the parent was getting photos all the time of
01:15her little boy who was happy, playing on the carpet with toys, etc.
01:20In reality, children were locked in high chairs for up to six hours a day, five days
01:26a week for months on end, force-fed, other kids were smashed to the ground.
01:32It was just, it was a house of horrors.
01:35Hearing that headline earlier, it would put a chill down the spine of parents.
01:38How do you expect them to respond to this special report?
01:41Yeah, and so it's not all centres are bad.
01:44Some for-profit centres are good, just as some non-profit centres are good.
01:49What they really need to do is to go unannounced, instead of saying we're picking our child
01:54up at four o'clock, come in unannounced to see what's really going on, and also have
01:59a look at the, every childcare centre is meant to get a rating, find out how long ago it
02:06was that that centre got rated.
02:09And Adele, from this report, I mean, what next?
02:11What comes next?
02:12Well, I'm hoping that state and federal governments will look at Four Corners tonight at eight
02:17o'clock and realise that there needs to be an inquiry.
02:21The New South Wales Government has announced an internal inquiry.
02:25There needs to be public inquiry so that people have a voice and can say what's really going on.