{"id":1844,"date":"2025-07-02T07:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australia-to-tighten-childcare-laws-after-melbourne-worker-charged-with-child-sex-offences\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T07:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:39:07","slug":"australia-to-tighten-childcare-laws-after-melbourne-worker-charged-with-child-sex-offences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australia-to-tighten-childcare-laws-after-melbourne-worker-charged-with-child-sex-offences\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia to tighten childcare laws after Melbourne worker charged with child sex offences"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>SYDNEY, July 2 &mdash; Australia plans new measures to strip funding from childcare centres that fall short of safety norms after a Melbourne man was charged with more than 70 offences over child sex abuse in a case that alarmed thousands of families.<\/p>\n<p>The incident has revived scrutiny of Australia&rsquo;s early childcare sector less than a year after a former worker was jailed for life over the sexual abuse of almost 70 children.<\/p>\n<p>Police said on Tuesday they had arrested and charged in May a 26-year-old childcare worker from the state of Victoria, whom they identified as Joshua Brown, with the offences involving eight victims aged from five months to two years.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, media said police also charged another man, known to Brown, with child sex abuse offences.<\/p>\n<p>Both men have not entered a plea and could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters could not trace contact details for their lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>After the accusations, authorities contacted thousands of families linked to the case and advised tests on about 1,200 children to rule out exposure to infectious diseases.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>Australia&rsquo;s Education Minister Jason Clare has asked his department to urgently draft new laws to let the government pull funding for childcare centres that were not &ldquo;up to scratch&rdquo; on standards of safety.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s about making sure that, if services aren&rsquo;t up to scratch, that they aren&rsquo;t meeting the safety and quality standards we expect &hellip; that we have the power as a government to cut their funding off,&rdquo; Clare told a press conference.<\/p>\n<p>Clare said he would also examine reforms to the permit system for working with children, after police said Brown held a valid permit at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>State premier Jacinta Allan said the &ldquo;sickening&rdquo; accusations prompted many to ask, &ldquo;How could this sort of offending be possible within a childcare centre?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The state would fast-track national changes under discussion, such as adopting a register for childcare workers and a ban on the use of personal devices in centres from September 26, Allan told another press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;My government will take every action possible, as soon as possible, to strengthen safety standards in early childhood settings and care, and to keep Victorian children safe,&rdquo; she added.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>The government will also consider installing closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in such centres, she added, during its review of safety measures.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This will be a short, sharp piece of work that will focus on the immediate actions we can take.&rdquo; &mdash; Reuters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>Australia to tighten childcare laws after Melbourne worker charged with child sex offences<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SYDNEY, July 2 &mdash; Australia plans new measures to strip funding from childcare centres that fall short of safety norms after a Melbourne man was charged with more than 70 offences over child sex abuse in a case that alarmed thousands of families. The incident has revived scrutiny of Australia&rsquo;s early childcare sector less than&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australia-to-tighten-childcare-laws-after-melbourne-worker-charged-with-child-sex-offences\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Australia to tighten childcare laws after Melbourne worker charged with child sex offences&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}