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Speaker 1: New rules designed to keep kids safe from the complex

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Speaker 1: issues facing territory childcare centers are soon going to come

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Speaker 1: into effect. The Federal Education Minister Jason Clair announcing reforms

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Speaker 1: last week, saying Australians was shocked and sickened by a

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Speaker 1: series of revelations of alleged sexual and physical abuse of

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Speaker 1: children in childcare over the past few months. Now, as

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Speaker 1: a result well and in response, those leaders have agreed

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Speaker 1: to a number of safety reforms, including a ban on

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Speaker 1: mobile phones from September, a national trial of CCTV in

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Speaker 1: centers and more unannounced spot checks, and a national education register.

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Speaker 1: Now joining us on the line to talk more about

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Speaker 1: this is Territory child Care Group Director Sarah Lloyd. Good morning, Sarah,

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Sarah. Great to have you on the show.

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Speaker 1: What was your reaction to this suite of reforms that

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Speaker 1: were announced by the federal minister last week.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was a part way to what

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Speaker 2: we were all looking for. I think there's some really

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Speaker 2: good things in there, including you know, the increased compliance

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Speaker 2: sex and you know that brings normality that it's happening

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Speaker 2: more frequently. I think the reforms that are coming in

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Speaker 2: like today effectively we're very on the cards. Everybody knew

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Speaker 2: about it. Vaping was just an extension of the already

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Speaker 2: tobacco laws. There's been the model policy out for electronic

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Speaker 2: devices for quite a long time, and I think that

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Speaker 2: you know, now it's just coming to force, I guess

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Speaker 2: as of today.

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Speaker 1: So Sarah, tell us a little bit more about the

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Speaker 1: you know, about the changes that come in today, exactly

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Speaker 1: what they are. And I know you've already touched on

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Speaker 1: the fact that you know, I guess you guys could

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Speaker 1: see them coming and you knew what to expect.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the personal devices has always been a bit

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Speaker 2: of a contentious issue, you know, in the day, in

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Speaker 2: the age of the mobile phone, but I think in

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Speaker 2: a majority of services would already have a policy that

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Speaker 2: you can't have your personal devices on the floor. Apple

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Speaker 2: watches will be an interesting space to see where they

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Speaker 2: go because some of the wording is around whether it

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Speaker 2: can capture images, and a watch technically can't capture an image,

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Speaker 2: but it is like a personal device, So that be

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Speaker 2: interesting to see where that sort of lands as we

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Speaker 2: go through this. The vaping, I think, you guess vaping

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Speaker 2: is one of those things you can't necessarily tell people

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Speaker 2: are doing it like tobacco, but I think most education

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Speaker 2: and care services would be pretty clear on no vaping

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Speaker 2: or around the service. And the third one that comes

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Speaker 2: in today is that all notifiable incidences must be reported

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Speaker 2: within twenty four hours. I think that's pretty standard practice

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Speaker 2: across the board now anyway as well. So this suite

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Speaker 2: of reforms I don't think any great expected consequences coming

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Speaker 2: out of that.

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Speaker 1: What about you know, some of the other things that

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Speaker 1: they're flagging, you know, looking at changing down the track,

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Speaker 1: I guess in terms of CCTV in the centers for example,

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Speaker 1: and I know the National Education Register. It's something that's

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Speaker 1: been spoken about for a little while. Now. What do

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Speaker 1: you think of some of those changes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the register's a really good idea. You know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of people have been calling for like a

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Speaker 2: professional register for a long time. I think that that's

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Speaker 2: a welcome and pretty sort of straightforward initiative, and you know,

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Speaker 2: will allow people to track and not do that center

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Speaker 2: hopping if they've been flagged. The CCTV, I think, is

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Speaker 2: a whole nother mind you know, like a mindfield of issues.

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Speaker 2: I think services are already a bit of a fish

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Speaker 2: bowl there's lots of eyes on in and around, and

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Speaker 2: I do think that there are invocations around privacy and

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Speaker 2: fair work and all sorts with the CCTV. So I

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Speaker 2: understand they're doing a trial with three hundred services. Be

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Speaker 2: interesting to see what comes out of that. What I

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Speaker 2: think is the will be bring the biggest impact is

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Speaker 2: the national child safety training because that's what we need,

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Speaker 2: is we need like whistleblowers, we need people to know

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Speaker 2: what we're looking for and we speak out when they

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Speaker 2: think something's gone, you know, something's not right, and have

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Speaker 2: hopefully have protections in amongst that. I think that's the key,

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Speaker 2: the key bit of this change.

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Speaker 1: Well, the thing that I'm hearing really loudly and clearly,

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Speaker 1: you know, from from childcare workers and educators is that

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Speaker 1: you're actually, you know, you want things to be stringent

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Speaker 1: because you know what's happened in recent months is it's

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Speaker 1: it's so not the way that the large majority of

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Speaker 1: wonderful childcare centers operate.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely right, And I think that you know, educators

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Speaker 2: attacking a bit of a bit of a blow with

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Speaker 2: all the media coverage and sort of dispresumption of guilt,

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Speaker 2: you know, or no trust can broadly across services, and

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Speaker 2: we're really talking about a really tiny percentage. I mean,

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Speaker 2: any percentage is too much for you know, significant harm.

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Speaker 2: But what's happened is everything's got swept up in this.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're talking about publishing compliance breaches. You know,

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Speaker 2: a compliance breach can be a very tiny administrative thing,

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Speaker 2: like a certificate's not in a folder, and that's getting

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Speaker 2: you know, potentially lumped in with you know, significant compliance

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Speaker 2: breaches which are a risk, you know, to children. It'd

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Speaker 2: be interesting to see how they unpack that too, because

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Speaker 2: a compliance breach, I think, is not what people think

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Speaker 2: it is. They think it's big, major things, but it

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Speaker 2: can be very small things as well, which are considered

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Speaker 2: considered to be a compliant breach.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean what kind of things can be considered

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Speaker 1: a compliance breach?

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Speaker 2: Can it be well, expired band aid who knew that

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Speaker 2: band aids have expiring dates on them? I don't know

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Speaker 2: an enrollment form where they've not listed the child's medical

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Speaker 2: practitioner for their breach of compliance. There's lots of you know,

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Speaker 2: lots of tiny, tiny things that there aren't materially of

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Speaker 2: any risk to anyone, but it would still be considered

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Speaker 2: to be a compliance breach.

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Speaker 1: Now in terms of you know, the safeguards that have

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Speaker 1: been announced, the changes that come into place today, do

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Speaker 1: you think there are other safeguards that you know, are

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Speaker 1: there other things that you'd like to see happening in

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory or do you think the changes that

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Speaker 1: are going to be implemented go far enough?

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Speaker 2: Well, the register will in part do what I think

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Speaker 2: needs to be done is around that reference checking, which

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Speaker 2: I guess is that tracking who has access to that

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Speaker 2: as a provider. That bit we don't know yet, you know,

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Speaker 2: I would definitely you know, for us reference checking previously.

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Speaker 2: You know, the most recent employer is a big part

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Speaker 2: of it. So whether whether that captures that or not,

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Speaker 2: but I would have liked to have seen more I

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Speaker 2: guess explicit HR mandated around employment and employee how processes

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Speaker 2: of employment.

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Speaker 1: Well, Sarah, it's really good to speak with you this morning.

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Speaker 1: Always good to catch up with you. I appreciate your

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Speaker 1: time and thank you for sort of giving us a

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Speaker 1: bit further detail about these changes and what they're going

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Speaker 1: to mean. Thank you any Thanks so much,