Federal authorities have promised to fast-track a national register for childcare workers after Melbourne educator Joshua Dale Brown, 26, was charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two.
The offences allegedly occurred at the G8-owned Creative Garden centre at Point Cook, in Melbourne's southwest, between April 2022 and January 2023.
Authorities say Brown worked at 24 facilities since 2017. They have recommended an additional 800 children who crossed paths with him be tested for infectious diseases after identifying additional centres where he worked.
Investigators have blamed a two-week delay in releasing his complete work history on childcare providers not having centralised records, requiring detectives to execute search warrants to obtain handwritten records, shift rosters and other critical information.
The issue harked back to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which in its 2017 final report found one of the great difficulties in most sectors dealing with children was poor record keeping and information sharing.
Recommendations included the need for substantial improvement in teacher and worker registrations, an increase in the quality of institutions' record keeping, the ability to exchange information between facilities and for states and territories to keep better track of workers employed in their jurisdictions.
Despite their acceptance of the recommendations, former royal commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said it had been difficult to get all nine governments led by the Commonwealth to act.
"Ten years on from our recommendations around information sharing and record keeping, the job has not yet been done and it has not been done because the nine governments of Australia have not committed the willpower to get it done in a timely manner," Mr Fitzgerald told AAP.
He accused some states and territories of being particularly slow in implementing significant recommendations.
"These are all manageable. These are all achievable and my disappointment is that progress has been made, but the job should have been done," Mr Fitzgerald said.
The former commissioner said every gap left in safeguarding the sector meant children were put at risk.
Adequate record keeping and information sharing can inform subsequent employers of a history of concern, not necessarily convictions, and can provide authorities with an insight into any patterns of abuse.
But the former commissioner has warned workers' rights can't be abandoned when it comes to sharing information about the conduct of individuals where there has been no substantiation of complaints or criminal action.
The Victorian government has pledged to establish a register of early childhood educators in the next two months, which will link into the national registration system once it is established.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
10°C