Every child has the right to be safe, cared for, and thriving. Safety, rights, and wellbeing must sit at the heart of Australia’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) system, not as a focus only when things go wrong. Child safety is about more than compliance.
It depends on how the system is designed, funded, and supported. Safe environments are created through stable and capable workforces, strong leadership, and policy settings that deliberately invest in quality, inclusion, and trusting relationships between educators, children, and families.
The challenge now is to ensure these commitments translate into consistent, practical action backed up by funding and resourcing so that safety is embedded in every decision, every practice, and every level of accountability across the system.
Read the submission here.