Calls mount for childcare system reform after Joshua Brown, Michael Wilson charged with child sex abuse

Child safety advocates are demanding a complete rethink of Australia’s early education system and workforce arrangements after Joshua Dale Brown was charged with 70 offences allegedly against eight children.

A second man, Michael Simon Wilson, has been charged with dozens of sex crimes, including against children and animals, as part of the investigation that uncovered Brown’s alleged abuse at a Melbourne childcare centre.

The two men are due to face court in September and are reportedly known to each other, but police have not commented on the second case. Wilson’s charges are not related to any childcare facilities.

Brown’s alleged offences have sent ricochets across the country. He worked at 20 childcare centres between January 2017 and May 2025, and 1200 children have now been advised to undergo infectious disease testing — with reports emerging on Wednesday afternoon, the now 26-year-old had allegedly contaminated food with bodily fluids.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday ordered a snap review into childcare safety in the State, which would look at mandating CCTV in childcare centres and how to go even further and act faster on measures being considered at a national level.

She said Victoria will establish its own register for childcare workers as a national system is being considered. She also announced fines of $50,000 will apply to the State’s childcare centres who don’t abide by a now mandatory ban on personal devices that come into effect in September.

Lisa Bryant, an early education and care advocate and researcher, said the sector was at a crisis point and governments needed to meet the moment with system-wide reform.

She said there should be a nationally coordinated approach to change the ratios away from one staff to every four babies, to one to three, and ensure no worker should ever be alone with infants.

She also called for governments to act on the high job turnover by “increasing wages in the sector, and by providing much better training and getting rid of training providers”, and to make it easier for people to report suspicious educators without fear of retribution.

“And we really need to think about removing private equity and corporate centres from the sector . . . this is where the abuse is happening and we need to get rid of them,” she said, calling for research to be done about whether children can be safe in those larger centres.

Of the 20 centres Brown worked at, at least 15 were owned or operated by public companies or private equity firms.

Georgie Dent from The Parenthood said there was clear evidence that, on the whole, not-for-profit and community-run early learning services deliver a higher standard of quality more consistently than for-profit providers.

“We have to look at two major safety issues. One of them is around how do we stop this sort of predatory behaviour, but the other piece we need to look at is to what extent we have enabled providers to expand and grow with a business model that is more focused on maximising profits than delivering the highest standard of quality early education and care for children,” she said.

“And that means looking at things like have we got providers where the business model is based around having the fewest number of staff with the lowest level of qualifications — not just in reflection of there being a workforce shortage, but because that’s the business model?

“The vast majority of education providers are in it for the right reason, and they do the right thing... But we cannot say, after all of the horror stories we’ve heard this year, that we have a system guaranteeing safety and quality.”

Data from Australia’s childcare regulator shows that for-profit services are on average rated as lower quality than not-for-profit services, with the divergence largely caused by staffing levels, qualifications and pay.

Larger centres have a higher proportion of part-time and casual staff than not-for-profits, with their educators often less experienced and lower paid than their peers at not-for-profits or community-run services.

Large childcare centre chains also have a higher degree of casualisation, enabling workers like Brown to work in 20 childcare centres in five years.

Victorian Children’s Minister Lizzie Blandthorn said the fact he had moved around so much “is not necessarily in and of itself an indicator of bad behaviour”.

“But we do want to know where people have been and where they’re going and how many times they’ve moved in their role as an educator,” she said of the registry announcement.

With the Albanese Government forging towards universal childcare, it’s becoming clearer that a two-tier system currently exists, and it is up to the Government whether or not that is satisfactory.

Anne Hollands, the National Children’s Commissioner, said there had been a lot of talk about “cheaper childcare”, but the Australian public “especially our youngest citizens, now need to see urgent action on ‘safer’ childcare”.

Both Ms Dent and Ms Bryant said one of the most urgent aspects that needed addressing was the workforce.

“We know that quality and safety are inextricably linked, and that in early childhood education and care the biggest determinant of quality is the workforce, and that means a workforce that is experienced, that is appropriately qualified and supported, a workforce that’s able to operate in a way where it’s possible for them to meet the needs of children in their care,” Ms Dent said.

Ms Bryant said the government should act on high turnover in the sector by increasing wages, by demanding a higher degree of training and getting rid of “dodgy training providers”.

Ms Dent also argued that Federal taxpayer funding should be tied directly to childcare centres meeting minimum safety and quality outcomes.

“We believe that given how much money the Commonwealth Government spends on the childcare subsidy, the fact that the Commonwealth government has stepped in to fund the necessary pay rise for early childhood educators, we believe creating a more direct relationship between the funding and outcomes required would help stabilise and strengthen the workforce, which would benefit children and lead to improved quality standards,” she said.

Ms Bryant queried why the Government was “underwriting these (large for-profit) companies”.

“In every other level of education, you cannot make a profit if you are accepting Government funding,” she said.

Education Minister Jason Clare on Wednesday said he wants the power to cut funding to centres not meeting safety standards.

“The legislation that I’ll bring to the parliament, which is about making sure that if services aren’t up to scratch, that they aren’t meeting the safety and the quality standards that we expect as a country, that we have the power as a government to cut their funding off. And that’s important too, because there’s nothing more important than the safety of our kids in early education and care,” he said.

Commissioner Hollands called on governments to revisit evidence-based recommendations made in numerous inquiries over past decades.

She also called for a rethink to the federation structure, and for national cabinet to now make child safety and wellbeing a key priority and urgently convene.

“That could be done with the stroke of a pen. This is not just an issue for education ministers. It’s good to see they have made commitments, but what is the accountability mechanism here to make sure we don’t look like we’re doing something and everyone moves on until the next tragedy happens,” she said.