00:01It was really confronting. It took us 18 months to get this footage and we spoke to the parents
00:08of the youngest child and what it showed us was an educator called Edwina Ling who started
00:14as the cook and the cleaner, started studying for childcare and then went straight into
00:19the baby room and was left unsupervised and over three days she was caught on CCTV physically
00:26abusing three little kids and it was smothering, shaking, kicking around, throwing them around
00:37like a rag doll. It was just so horrific to look at and what it found was that this woman
00:44was allowed to be there unsupervised and that is allowed across childcare centres even with
00:51all of the reforms and the parents of this youngest child who suffered 55 of the 82 physical assaults
00:59that she slated out on kids said that they wanted Australia to see because it was in such a remote
01:06place it didn't get much airplay at all and this footage is hoping to cut through and show
01:15that safety matters. I mean we know that and you mentioned there the governments have promised
01:21major reforms after your first investigation. What has exactly happened since then or changed
01:27and where do you think that the system is still falling short? Yeah so there have been a lot of
01:31sweeping reforms, you've had tougher penalties, regulators going in more, the government's using
01:37funding as a leverage so there's been many things that are happening but it hasn't sort of got to the
01:42heart of the issue which the elephant in the room which is the the dominance of the for-profit operators
01:47with seven in ten long daycare are for profit and that matters because if you look at the national
01:53quality standards non-profit community centres tend to outrank them in terms of quality and less
02:01incidence proportionately so it does matter because for profits while there are some great for-profit
02:07operators they put profit first they've got shareholders their private equity their
02:12property developers whatever and these reforms don't tackle that. So how widespread are the
02:18problems that you've found and what does what does it tell us about the way that the Australia's
02:21child care system is structured? Yeah so the it is still widespread this was one remote centre and
02:28we've got the footage and it's horrifying but we also looked at some big for-profit chains in the rest
02:33of
02:34Australia and we we found hundreds of serious incidents enforcement actions where children are going
02:41missing children are physically assaulted children are unsupervised and the cut through to all of this
02:48is is safety supervision and staffing and that's what educators that we talk to parents that we talk to
02:57say that you know governments when they're getting together in the next few days put supervision high
03:02on your list have a look at staffing ratios because if you don't have supervision terrible things can
03:08happen. So are they the three elements that need to be bolstered in the system to give parents confidence?
03:14Yeah they are but there's also child care deserts and the and the fact talking to so many parents
03:20community centres are getting squeezed out and for profits are just growing and growing so the
03:27governments are aware of this and they're trying to work out what to do but there's a long way to
03:31go.
