Hundreds of pages of newly released government documents have exposed a series of alarming incidents at childcare centres across the Australian Capital Territory, raising serious questions about supervision and safety standards in the sector.
A Catalogue of Failures
The documents, released by the ACT government, detail hundreds of complaints, incidents and regulatory actions taken against childcare and after-school care providers. They paint a picture of a system where, in some facilities, basic safety protocols were repeatedly ignored, putting young children at significant risk.
One of the most serious cases occurred at Genius Gungahlin in March 2023. According to the records, a four-year-old child accessed a push-button lighter from a shelf within their reach in the centre's kitchenette. The child then attempted to ignite various surfaces, including another child, before successfully setting fire to the canopy of a wooden play shop.
While staff scrambled to extinguish the flames, a three-year-old was left unattended on a raised change table for two minutes. The ACT Regulatory Authority, which oversees education, found multiple failures. It concluded that educators took inadequate steps to remove children from danger and did not follow emergency procedures. "The consequences of the failings in supervision and risk prevention could have been catastrophic," the regulator noted.
Systemic Issues Across Dozens of Centres
The problems were not isolated to a single provider. The documents reveal incidents at dozens of centres, ranging from children being left unsupervised for extended periods to cases of physical and verbal abuse by staff members.
At Bright Future Early Learning Belconnen in November 2021, a boy was yelled at by an educator and locked in a bathroom after behaving aggressively towards another child. The regulator deemed the staff member's actions "unreasonable" and issued a caution letter and a compliance notice to the centre. In a separate incident at the same centre in April 2024, an educator hit a child and dragged them across a room by the arm.
Other documented breaches include a two-year-old at Guardian Childcare Bruce in April 2021 who was found with his hands in a container of thumb tacks after wandering unsupervised. In February 2024, the same centre had a toilet full of black water in a toddlers' bathroom, mould in handbasins, and exposed drains posing an immediate risk of finger entrapment.
Regulatory Action and Centre Closures
Centres with the most serious breaches faced enforcement action, including emergency action notices, compliance notices, and in some cases, cancellation of their approval to operate.
Genius Gungahlin, which had more than a dozen complaints and regulatory actions against it, was not suspended by the regulator until February 2025. This was despite the authority finding dozens of breaches during audits and issuing several compliance notices dating back to 2021. One document details how a three-year-old was left in the same nappy for nine hours in April 2023, resulting in alleged urine scalding. The company that owned the centre entered administration in March 2025.
ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry has previously framed childcare reform as a national issue, stating that centres were doing their best and that serious failures represented a minority of the sector. However, the scale and severity of the incidents detailed in the released documents will likely intensify calls for stricter oversight and accountability.
The revelations underscore the critical importance of rigorous supervision, proper risk management, and robust regulatory enforcement to ensure the safety and wellbeing of some of the community's most vulnerable members.
