The wheels of government (small “g” – politicians and public servants) are turning to Do Something about childcare safety.

That’s the good news, albeit disgracefully late. Legislation has been passed and the stick is being waved in the general direction of the allegedly unworthy.

So far, so good. The bad news is, there is a lot more to do and business as usual works against substantive change. Here is why from the (admittedly grumpy) perspective of much “been there, done that” experience.

In grim, but perhaps unsurprising, summary: in the Robodebt age, government actually doing things for and to protect people is more irrelevant than ever before. Especially compared with maintaining appearances, talking big for the sake of clicks and likes, and a quiet life. This does not portend well.

The new legislation and indications that it is completely rushed brings potential (though I am not a lawyer, or IANAL in the lingo) legal risks, and is accompanied by signs of morning-after regret, are mostly outside the scope of our discussion. Nonetheless, there is one angle worth remarking upon in passing.

The main legislative change is to give Minister Jason Clare’s department powers that effectively duplicate those of the independent and mostly state-driven childcare regulator, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority. “Effectively” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but that’s the bottom line.

The interesting thing is that Clare may, like movie-Gandalf, have chosen The Way of Pain:

• The states will mostly likely walk somewhat away from their childcare quality responsibilities and completely away from the Really Hard Decisions. Clare will be carrying the can, with states’ fingers pointing at him even at every turn.
• As the new owner of the Really Hard Decisions, media and the community will expect Clare to go the full John Wick on every centre on every allegation, immediately, regardless of facts, seriousness or due process.

Back to the story; there will be a review. Of course. Unfortunately, overwhelmingly the odds are it will be a typical government-commissioned reviews. That is, it will be a sack of disorganised and unstructured thought-bubbles mixed with unevidenced pet ideas of the supposed key players — who may well themselves be the problem — to benefit themselves. This is how governments get “stakeholder buy-in” and agreement to “reform”, among other things, with minimum pain.

It is unlikely to be helpful and may make things worse, is what I am saying.

But never mind. Even if the review is one of the few good ones, it gets worse. The system militates against it being put into effect.

Once the the new rules and processes have been formalised the “being put into effect” part entails checking that the laws are being complied with (“monitoring compliance”), and doing something about it if it is not (“enforcement”).

Ministers and their staff and senior public servants love announcing the things to be done, but not the actual doing. Not one little bit.

The shared concern of elected and unelected officials, with going out and looking, is that something may be found. This is terribly embarrassing and may lead to the need to do something.

Looking for problems, let alone finding them, also upsets those key players – the funding recipients, I mean, not taxpayers and service users. Who do you think you are? They are the “mates” who object vociferously to being asked if they are doing the right thing, let alone being required actually to do it.

Senior public servants often see compliance monitoring as non-core and pointless work and so a drain on meeting higher priorities like preparing things to be announced, and speeches, and endless reviews that go nowhere.

The consequence is that compliance monitoring, and the likelihood of actually finding anything, is perennially under-resourced. I could tell sad stories about losing fights with my seniors to keep up (or any) compliance and enforcement staff, but instead I’ll point to the media reporting about gaps and non-performance of quality reviews in the childcare sector – reportedly 10% of centres.

The antipathy in government to looking for problems is nothing compared with views on enforcement on finding them. Once again, there is embarrassment and upsetting the mates, but at a much deeper level. It also involves scary legal risks. Pan Pharmaceuticals is, to this day, adduced as a reason not to do enforcement.

There may be covert or overt pressure from ministerial staffers before decisions are made, and second-guessing or enraged bollocking from senior public servants after regulatory decisions are made – no matter how much warning they have had. The bollocking will follow, perhaps within minutes, the phone calls from the mates.

Simply ordering enforcement not to be done or otherwise blocking it is, and please note the passive voice, not unknown.

When it comes to enforcement, subtle and unsubtle pressure may be put on regulatory decision-makers not to do enforcement. It’s much easier and cheaper than properly funding prevention of harms. You may note that consideration of the interests and welfare of Australians is absent from this calculus.

The result is norming regulator inaction.

And that is why, despite passing of the Great Big Beautiful Childcare Bill, the future is very, very uncertain.

As the presser linked above says, there is a rushing (to the extent that, whilst again IANAL, my spidey-senses tell me administrative lawyers are salivating) to put some notches on their, guns? Dual screens? Anyway, this is typical: as Sir Samuel Vimes noted, there is no-one more alert than a guard after the theft has taken place. The real test is what happens in a year to five years in commitment to delivery.

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