Calls for childcare register to include work histories

A national childcare worker register should show the employment history of staff after revelations an accused child abuser was sacked from one facility but continued working unimpeded.

Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two at a childcare centre in Melbourne.

Authorities have previously said there were no known complaints against him, however childcare giant Nido Early Learning has confirmed Brown was sacked while on probation after completing 18 shifts at a centre in Werribee, in Melbourne's west.

The incident happened before he started working at the G8-owned Creative Garden centre at Point Cook in Melbourne's southwest, where he is accused of abusing children between April 2022 and January 2023.

A Nido Early Learning spokesperson said Brown was terminated over "unsatisfactory attention" given to an internal incident report related to one child's behaviour towards another child.

He was also subject to two misconduct investigations while he was working at G8, both of which found the non-sexual claims involving children were substantiated.

He was suspended and then resigned after the second investigation. Both incidents came after the alleged abuse for which he has been charged.

Federal and state jurisdictions have promised to fast-track a national register for childcare workers, after it was discovered Brown had worked at 24 facilities since 2017.

New laws to strip dodgy childcare centres of federal funding and other changes will be introduced by the government when parliament resumes, however there are concerns that may not be enough to prevent abuse.

Early Childhood Australia chief executive Sam Page said the proposed register must provide more oversight on educators' employment histories, including where they have worked and their employment patterns.

"What we want to stop is educators demonstrating poor practice or harm towards children from jumping from one service to the next and nobody can see the pattern or complaints," she told AAP.

Currently, the only information about educators childcare employers have access to when a worker applies for a job is their CV and referees.

Ms Page said the register's board must take firm action against misconduct that may not reach the criminal threshold.

"Children are such a vulnerable cohort. It often is difficult to reach that threshold of evidence ... so I do think we need to have better safeguards in place," she said.

The parents of about 2000 children who crossed paths with Brown have been told to get them tested for infectious diseases.

His work history was updated this week to include five new centres.

Investigators have blamed delays on gathering information on his employment on a lack of centralised records, revealing they had to get search warrants to obtain handwritten records, shift rosters and other critical data.

Former royal commissioner Robert Fitzgerald, who sat on the inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, said it had been difficult to get Australia's governments to act on recommendations around record keeping and information sharing.

"Ten years on ... the job has not yet been done and it has not been done because the nine governments of Australia have not committed the willpower to get it done in a timely manner," Mr Fitzgerald said.

"These are all manageable. These are all achievable and my disappointment is that progress has been made, but the job should have been done."

The former commissioner said every gap left in safeguarding the sector meant children were put at risk.

Early childhood education expert Erin Harper said the proposed register should delineate between criminal activity and non-criminal conduct to protect workers who make one small mistake but still weed out more concerning patterns.

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National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028