Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
6PR PERTH LIVE WITH OLIVER PETERSON
Friday, 8 August 2025
Topics: ECAC personal device ban; child safety
OLIVER PETERSON: Should childcare workers be able to take their personal mobile phones into the centre? Now, we’re all quite well aware of what has happened over in New South Wales and what is before the courts there. The Federal Government is currently looking at changing legislation to force operators, together with the state legislation, to ensure there is childcare mobile phone ban compliance. In South Australia, for example, this week the Malinauskas government announced plans to require all childcare providers provide proof that they’ve complied with the new guidelines or they’ll face fines up to $50,000, even suspension. Victoria’s also signalled its own ban plans. Work is underway here in WA, but on a national front, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning says the federal government is not doing enough. Zoe McKenzie can tell you more. She is that Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning, and she joins me live on 6PR. Hi, Zoe.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Hello, how are you, Ollie?
OLIVER PETERSON: I’m well, thanks, Zoe. What is the federal government currently doing? What are they considering at the moment?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Look, to be fair to them, we as the opposition have been working closely with them since the allegations hit the front pages across the country of alleged child abuse in a childcare setting in Victoria, and that was at the beginning of July. The education ministers met shortly thereafter, but they’re not really sitting down to discuss these issues in detail until the middle of August, which is about six or seven weeks since, frankly, all parents have been focused on what we collectively as governments are doing to make these settings as safe as is possible. One of the things that has been on the table, and been discussed for a while, is exactly what you just described it has been moved on in both South Australia and, indeed, my home state of Victoria which is to make these bans on personal devices compulsory across the system nationally. It will be the case in South Australia and Victoria but there is more to do and frankly we are concerned by just this āit will come in its own timeā approach which is not before the middle of August. The guidelines have been there for a while, they could be mandated immediately, there could be timelines set for all early childhood settings to implement them. I should say that many of our centres have these, the voluntary codes have been adopted and implemented. I was just at the Balnarring Preschool talking with a preschool teacher who’s been in the sector for 42 years, and she said, absolutely unquestionable, you should never have a personal device anywhere near a centre, whether that’s in the classroom or indeed on an excursion, they have a blanket rule and our best centres already have that rule, but frankly, our governments need to be providing reassurance to parents, which includes moving to make that mandatory now.
OLIVER PETERSON: Do you think some of the centres across the country have already made the move themselves before the…
ZOE MCKENZIE: I know they have. So they’ve taken them as a model code, best practice, and implemented them already, but that’s not uniform and as we know from the allegations that we’ve seen on our front page, and there have been more recent revelations of historical allegations in New South Wales as well, this has come from there being a tolerance of personal devices in childcare settings, and often only one person in a room with a child at the time. Again, the advice I had from this well-experienced preschool teacher today was, you know, the best practice would be to have two people with the children at one time. Now, that comes down to workforce availability, and we know that the care economy is really stretched in terms of workforce at the moment. So next best is no personal devices, and ideally, we’d be looking at things like CCTV as well. So, there’s more for the government to do, and we’re just deeply concerned that it’s a kind of it-will-be-when-it-will-be approach, as opposed to with haste and urgency. That means these early childhood ministers should have already got together, quite frankly. At least in my state in Victoria, the opposition, the coalition opposition, has been putting forward legislation, albeit bizarrely rebuffed by the Allan Labor government, to introduce measures, like CCTV within childcare settings. But we’ll see what comes out of the meeting on the 15th of August.
OLIVER PETERSON: You just want this expedited, because I know the Federal Government wants to develop that childcare worker registration system. I think the last check I had of this, it wouldn’t be in place until probably the end of next month, September.
ZOE MCKENZIE: And that’s been handled by attorneys general. And so, to be fair, there’s regulation across this sector in multiple portfolios. But again, what we’ve just noticed, in terms of leadership from the Albanese government, I remember so much of this regulation competence sits with the states and territories. But we know the federal government can lead. We saw them do it in things like gun control. You just need to bring everyone into the room and say, let’s get on with it. The main issue is parents are rightfully concerned. You would know this. When you send your child to a childcare setting, they’re zero, they’re one, they’re two, they’re three. They haven’t got the verbal ability to describe what happens, nor even, frankly, to necessarily understand what happens. It’s a time of extreme vulnerability, and therefore, the utmost trust from the parent to the centre. Let’s do everything we can to make sure parents feel reassured that trust is well placed. As we know, they are in the vast, vast, vast, vast bulk of centres. But let’s just add some proof points so that parents know when they drop their kids at childcare, which many have to do for economic reasons now. You need two incomes to afford most homes in Australia. They’re doing it because they have to. Let’s make them feel safe in that choice.
OLIVER PETERSON: What about the Working with Children Checks, Zoe? Are they thorough enough? Does that also need to be reviewed?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So that is currently being reviewed, to be fair. Again, within the remit of attorneys general. And my colleague, the Shadow Attorney General, Julian Leeser, is responsible for carrying that through with Michelle Rowland. But again, different rules, different periods of eligibility. No real tie up between a conviction or indeed an allegation that may have happened in one jurisdiction. And then the educator or the childcare worker moves to a different jurisdiction. It’s just one of those ones where it needs much more checks and balances. So, if there’s a flag somewhere, that flag carries through the systems across the nation, again, to give parents comfort and confidence that the sector is working and safe.
OLIVER PETERSON: Zoe McKenzie, thanks for your time.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Thank you.
ENDS.
