_The moral panic enveloping Australia and the ABC over the existence of child molesters in the childcare system will do this nation no good.

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Before the story subsides, it will probably add a billion dollars to the cost of providing universal childcare to all Australian children. This is no mean sum, which, no doubt, The Australian would think better spent on military defence.

Those extra dollars, perhaps 6% of the total extra bill of the project will be spent on absurd regulations mandating mechanical new measures to put all childcare workers, but particularly male ones, under constant surveillance, and new reporting regimes. It is unlikely that they will prevent any assaults.

Even more will be required, if we proceed on the wider agenda of many of those involved in taking advantage of the issue. They want the closure of all for-profit childcare centres. These are about 50% of all current providers. They want instead community-run centres, government or council ones, or small-scale private ones. Whether a good idea or not, implementing it would delay the establishment of a quality system of universal childcare for all Australians by more than a decade.

Making for-profits take the blame for any child abuse is on the theory that the big for-profits are only in there to make a quid. They are farming the increasingly generous public subsidies available. Thus, it is said, the safety and welfare of children is only an incidental consideration compared with keeping costs down. Such centres want to maximise profit, and accordingly will stint on quality of services and staff, supervision and surveillance to prevent abuses, and the security and well-being of the children to achieve it.

One could say (and many do) much the same about aged care, and disability care. But if I were going to change the status quo, I would focus on future centres, not ones that, at the moment, we can ill-afford to replace.

It’s a feel-good conclusion, and to many, it feels right. But there is not much evidence that children are safer in community care, even in small centres. Truth is that reliable figures are hard to come by. The most celebrated cases of sexual abuse – this week, and the additional case of an alleged accomplice, as well as the Queensland case earlier this year, must be assumed to be the tip of the iceberg. But it is worth bearing in mind that police and government have been less than proactive in case-finding, but have only a limited feel for the problem. It is, indeed, possible to say that police activity in relation to suspected sexual abuse of children occurs in situations where they are least likely to find it.

The risk of faltering with the noble ambition of quality universal childcare

What I fear is that the crusade for very high-quality childcare, available to all Australians, will falter if we distract ourselves singlemindedly with safety and security considerations. Of course, the safety of children is a primary concern, but one could be excused for thinking that this has not occurred to anyone at all until now, or that the system is a shambles without any checks and balances. The cases which have come before the courts are horrifying if seemingly rare.

The problems of keeping staff, and filling rosters, reflects actual shortages of childcare workers. In many cases it is worse in regional centres. It may well be worse in for-profit centres. But it cannot be addressed by edict, unless centres are to be required to refuse to take children in when ratios are affected.

Obviously, it would be far better if staff levels were determined by formulae, solid systems established for substitute staff whenever the level is not reached, and an army of inspectors hired to make sure that all children are safe at all times. That would assume that staff, qualified and unqualified, were available: nationally, however, there may be a shortage of more than 50,000 workers, and big backlogs in training programs. As with the aged-care workforce shortage, only immigration would fill the gaps. Low pay, despite recent increases, is still an issue, but not the main barrier.

The loudest squawks about the abuse charges I have heard have been from Sarah Ferguson, in full prosecutorial mode, and perhaps Jenna Price, who seems to want to organise a lynch party unless we can guarantee that every child is safe 110% of the time. I enjoy Jenna’s rants, mostly even agree with their base sentiments, but I think she is over the top with this. It is all very well to demand higher penalties (as though this will make the slightest difference to incidence) and more and more horrible punishments, if only to vent one’s indignation about the monsters in our midst. I have seen such malefactors – and the overwhelming proportion are pathetic folk, who were themselves abused as children. Their paraphilia is a disease, the worse because the impulses upon which people act cannot really be cured. They are not exempt from punishment because they can hardly help themselves, but they ought to be as much objects of pity as contempt.

As far as very young children are concerned, the major sets of offenders tend to be men in their 30s, and young men from the age of about 14. Some have suggested that men be banned from the industry, but in my opinion that would be disastrous. Indeed, it would be better if there were more men, so that a strength in numbers made aberrant behaviour more obvious. Children need male role models in childcare and preschools as much as they do in primary schools.

Calm and deliberate action works better than righteous indignation

Physical and sexual abuse in childcare are serious problems requiring preventive strategies. But a degree of calm is required. I have a feeling that many Australians have already thrown their hands in the air in thinking about how crimes are most heinous and most deserving of punishment. Child sex abuse is always near the top of the list, for many as bad as or worse than murder.

For some, in WA, it seems, the zeal is to attack Aboriginal kids stealing cars or bikes. Perth shock jocks seem to incite violence with plainly racist generalisations; Premiers are seen to cower before them with ever higher penalties.

With paedophiles, those convicted are even at severe risk from other convicted prisoners. I have a feeling that the American appetite for capital punishment will return to Australia, fuelling demand for a restoration of hanging. If I were planning a campaign, I suppose I would use child sex abuse. But the real agenda of many of the zealots may be capital punishment for those who have abortions, the recriminalisation of gay behaviour, and those (not white) guilty of killing whites. Sensible people should avoid saying silly things that will later be quoted back at them.

A core of people always seems to think that anyone expressing doubts or qualifications about the hysterical reactions we are seeing is proof of not caring about the problem. Or even of being a paedophile oneself. Actually, I think that the problem is probably more serious than many think. But I do not think that we will solve the problem with grand gestures, or visiting cruelties on offenders, or humouring those parading their outrage in extravagant terms. That way really lies lynching.

We need novel and stringent means of dealing with offenders and denying them access to victims. Preferably ones which are integrated with other programs to reduce the risk to children in schools and institutional care, as well as in their homes, the place where they are most at risk.

I do not mean by this that school or childcare systems should follow children home to assess the risk to young children, or to take responsibility for systems for catching offenders. But whatever schemes we are to have for making children safe in or about their own dwellings should at least dovetail with what is happening in childcare, pre-schools, family day care centres and after school hours care. Reliable statistics after all tell us that the risk of physical and sexual abuse of young children is about 10 times as great from close relatives and near neighbours as it is from teachers or childcare workers.

Police seem to have no appetite for investigating physical or sexual abuse of children where they are most vulnerable: in their homes

I do not know why the focus of the law is on everywhere but the home. Police have been pushed to pay a lot more attention to domestic violence, but there is little increased activity on physical or sexual abuse of children in their homes. They cross over, of course.

At least since the royal commission, most schools have taken steps to reduce the occasions and opportunities for lone predators. In most cases, this has not been by legal or industrial regulation, so much as the creation of increased awareness of the risks, and new working practices that significantly reduce one-to-one exposure. And, significantly, in the best schools, institutions (and childcare centres), teachers discuss the issue openly with children. They talk about social boundaries in relation to touching and their right and duty to report those who trespass. Some predatory individuals may still escape the screens, but they are now at more significant risk of detection. They are also at increased risk of after-the-fact detection, given that many schools have closed circuit monitoring.

The risk is not only from teachers and childcare workers who have not been picked up in pre-screening systems and being checked for working-with-children cards. It comes also from other children at the centre, including visitors, and it comes also from visitors who, on site, may take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. There are also cases where it is plain to teachers that abuse has occurred, probably in the home, before the child has arrived. Some managers think the risk of abuse from workers in the centre may be lower than from other children, or from visitors, including parents picking children up.

I have never seen reliable figures of the incidence of abuse of young children in the childcare industry. I expect that it is higher than we presently know. But it is my guess that it is not as prevalent as in schools and institutions, if only because childcare centres generally have more staff in the immediate vicinity, these days probably somewhat more aware of the risks.

Effectively dealing with the problem is mostly a matter of practical arrangements which minimise opportunities for being alone with children, or in places where the risk of abuse is higher. Perhaps particularly for for-profit institutions, forcing managerial action to control and minimise risks may be a matter of swingeing penalties for ineffective controls. Or for failing to monitor and record abuse. But the for-profits have at least some extra risks, at least if government takes its supervisory duties seriously. Inspections systems accompanied by enforcement and penalties attract publicity and adverse consequences for a chain’s “brand” as events of this week have demonstrated.

No need for pontification from the great and good. Just common sense action is needed

I do not think that we need some form of formal inquiry, whether at state or federal level. A bit of grandstanding and publicity may serve the purpose of making managers and staff more aware of the constant risks. But I doubt that pious statements of zero-tolerance policies, or signs on walls, will make much difference.

Findings by learned committees, even ones composed of former premiers, social workers and police commissioners serve only the purpose of allowing ministers to appear very concerned before submitting to Sarah Ferguson.

Moreover there is every chance that any findings of fact or recommendation will be hijacked by politicians or bureaucrats (or both) to carry out some measures not actually recommended (indeed, possibly recommended against). Agendas abound.

This was the fate of the “Little children are sacred” report in the Northern Territory, which was ostensibly the reason for the 2006 Emergency Intervention. There was no resemblance between the facts and recommendations and action taken by the Commonwealth. They were just the occasion for the minister doing what he liked. Helped by the ABC 730 report which went tabloid on very dodgy allegations.

After the Intervention was announced, vigorous and enthusiastic investigations by police, who, like social workers and Centrelink officers always welcome fresh powers over our most powerless citizens, failed to bring cases before the courts. Perhaps there were not any, or many at any rate. Nor did initially highly intrusive and improper forced examinations of Aboriginal children by volunteer doctors seem to bear out claims by the minister, or members of his staff that there were active paedophile rings in operation.

It is not to be thought that that particular moral panic, with uncanny crossovers with the latest one, can be excused simply by asserting that concern for the welfare of kids justifies almost any interference with people’s lives. Those who demanded it — including some members of the media — felt morally righteous and indignant about the outrages they believed were being perpetrated. That might have justified careful investigation, but not the actual consequences inflicted on 50,000 Australian citizens. That the government’s actions ran against the expert advice undermined its case in any event.

It hardly needs saying that governments would not have thought or dreamed of the forms of mass punishment, pre-emptive action and coercion visited upon rural NT Aborigines. The intervention removed Indigenous involvement in the organisation of services in communities, and empowered instead hundreds of white officials, each given powers, pay and conditions (and white Toyotas) – no Aborigines had. It removed any independence over welfare expenditure, for fear Aborigines might spend it on grog and cigarettes. Alcohol is a problem everywhere in the NT, but 50% of Indigenous adults do not drink at all. It is no exaggeration to say that the Intervention set back Aboriginal progress – and later efforts to Close the Gap, by more than a decade.

The restrictions, continued by the Rudd and Gillard Governments for appearance purposes even after the government was advised that the intervention had been a serious failure, are still partly in place today. NT Indigenous people still bridle under the legacy of government propaganda that they are a feckless people, addicted to pornography and the sexual abuse of children, and unable to manage their own finances or affairs.

Howard also brought in the services, failing to remember that the Australian Army has never won a battle on Australian soil. (Among its most celebrated defeats are the Emu War and the battle of Brisbane). On this account it did not disappoint, but not without causing considerable shock and despair somewhat akin to Donald Trump’s sending the army into Los Angeles. I doubt the army would win the battle in the pre-schools either. Let’s have some realism in this debate.

Republished from The Canberra Times, 4 July 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.