We can fix the childcare sector by giving parents more time at home

There are now nearly 30,000 babies in childcare - and I'm guessing that they wouldn't be there if their parents had a choice. I remember going back to work at six weeks and crying most days.

The Parenthood CEO Georgie Dent says paid parental leave would make a huge difference. "It would give parents genuine options to stay at home longer in the first year of a child's life. Child development is supported, mental health for both men and women improved."

Then she makes a massive understatement. Bringing a baby home is one of the most radical life transformations that has ever occurred.

Beg to differ. The most radical transformation. Wild. It takes time to recover (not that I think I have, and my eldest is 40).

Why does this matter now?

It's the Monday just gone and I'm glued to the television watching the ABC's Adele Ferguson on Four Corners. I say I'm glued but petrified is more the word. Ferguson says: "I've been investigating childcare for more than a year ... and some of what I've seen, I'll never forget."

Then she says: "Safeguards are crumbling ... predators have found their way in ... and they are preying on our children."

Four Corners' analysis reveals three-quarters of alleged and proved offending occurred at for-profit services and a whopping 88 per cent of that offending happened at for-profit long day care centres.

We must close for-profit childcare. This terrible crime is occurring unchecked in the for-profit sector so we must shut it down.

I assumed these crimes would happen in large urban centres - but Ferguson says that's not right. It also happens in regional areas - and some of us will never know because the alleged perpetrators' identities are protected. We know when someone is alleged to have committed a robbery or a theft - even a murder. But not child sexual abuse.

The argument is that it protects the children - but it also protects the perpetrators. Right now, one alleged perpetrator, whose next court date is December 3, is from a regional community in the New England area. No name. No accountability. And I'm guessing the parents are in a state of fear and horror. Ferguson says: "There are some people sitting in jail right now and we can't name them, there is a non-publication order. It is a black box."

We don't know the true extent of this horrific crime. Why? Child sexual abuse is hard to prove. Mostly, the victims are voiceless. They may not even understand what's happening to them. But if we want to improve the safety of our children, we need to act. Better paid parental leave is part of the answer.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency's CEO Mary Wooldridge says only 68 per cent of medium and large employers offer paid parental leave. The Agency names names and some of the omissions are staggering. The 2024 stats show only 18 per cent offer it in a universal way, with no gender distinction. Some employers top up the federal payment, 24 weeks at $948 a week.

Wooldridge says: "Offering paid parental leave is critical and offering it universally is best practice."

Which might explain why in the WGEA 2024 reporting year, two childcare chains didn't offer paid parental leave to staff, two chains caught up in the worst of the child sex abuse horrors: Affinity and G8. Would those businesses even know what best practice looks like?

Three of Australia's independent MPs are also united on the call for better-paid parental schemes across the board. Sophie Scamps, representing the Sydney seat of Mackellar, is stunned that nearly a third of medium and large companies in Australia don't support their staff with paid parental leave.

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"Incredibly, this includes some of the largest private childcare providers. It should be compulsory for all large companies to pay parental leave," she says.

"We need to take the pressure off the childcare sector, so it also makes absolute sense for the government to extend its paid parental leave scheme from 6 to 12 months for those who wish to care for their kids at home."

Monique Ryan, representing the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, argues Australia would benefit from a scheme guaranteeing a full 12 months of paid parental leave - equally shared between both parents. "It makes sense that all large employers get behind this policy. It would take pressure off the childcare sector, which is struggling to accommodate demand, and would help reduce inequity and better support families."

And Helen Haines, independent in the rural seat of Indi, bordering NSW and Victoria, is also calling for universal paid parental leave - and an end to childcare deserts, those parts of Australia where there are three children for every available childcare place. That, she says, is common in regional Australia.

There is absolutely no question that the federal government is trying to lift standards in childcare centres - the increase in pay for childcare workers makes the industry more sustainable. Which is great. But we also need to think about who works in these centres and the conditions under which they work, including the numbers of staff to kid. We've got to stop centres from using office staff to "improve" their ratios.

I asked Georgie Dent of The Parenthood if we should ban men.

"I completely understand why people are reaching for that sort of conclusion. It does really break my heart because I think that we have to be able to distinguish between early childhood educators and teachers and predators," she says.

And then she makes an excellent point: "We haven't banned men from being priests or teachers or coaches. We have to invest in the guardrails that are necessary to keep all early education and care services safe."