Sydney childcare centres caught employing banned workers in national safety blitz

Two Sydney childcare centres were caught this week employing workers who have been banned from working with children, as regulators crack down on the sector.

New rules requiring early learning services to undertake strict screening checks of workers, entering their details in a new national register, are now in place as the NSW government vows to build a system where child safety and quality are non-negotiable.

The crackdown comes after a series of high-profile incidents at childcare centres have put safety in the spotlight and forced governments to intervene.

Among the most notorious cases was one of Australia’s worst childcare paedophiles, Ashley Paul Griffith, who escaped detection for years despite multiple incidents and complaints, due to childcare centres not keeping records for why they no longer employed him, and failures to seek referee reports from previous places of work.

Griffith has pleaded guilty to more than 300 offences in Australia and abroad, including in early learning settings. He is known to have worked across multiple services and across states, remaining undetected for some years.

During a compliance blitz this week, the NSW Early Learning Commission and the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority visited more than 500 centres.

Officers checked whether approved providers had implemented the mandatory National Early Childhood Worker Register, a platform developed to ensure greater visibility of people working in the sector.

Under new legislation, providers must ensure prospective and existing staff are not subject to a suspension, supervision or prohibition notice, or an enforceable undertaking. Penalties apply where individuals provide false or misleading information.

During the blitz, one south-western Sydney provider was fined $20,000 for hiring someone who had been prohibited from working with children after they used “inappropriate discipline” on a child.

In a separate incident, a south-western Sydney service operated by childcare giant G8 Education was caught employing someone who had been banned from working in the sector since 2020. The person had been prohibited due to criminal charges not related to interactions with children.

Officers attended the service on the same day to instruct the individual to leave the premises immediately and the regulator will now investigate the centre.

It comes after G8 announced plans to close up to 40 centres – nearly 10 per cent of its operations – in response to an ongoing occupancy slump, rising costs and the fallout from last year’s childcare sex abuse scandal.

The measures come as NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Prue Car on Wednesday announced Daryl Currie’s appointment as NSW early learning commissioner.

Car said the government was building a system where child safety and quality were non-negotiable.

“The commissioner will play a critical role in ensuring strong oversight, high standards, and consistent regulation across the sector,” she said.

Currie said: “Transparency and accountability will remain central to how the commission regulates and supports the sector, so that families can have confidence that wherever they access early learning in NSW, their children are safe and supported.”

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