By Bridget Sheehan
With widespread fear and concern about childcare safety across Australia, every aspect of the system is being looked at to see what changes are needed to guarantee the safety of children.
How childcare is funded, who owns centres, and where centres are located are all part of this.
“We need to examine the fundamentals of the sector to ask why it may be more vulnerable to serious failures than we might expect,” explains Professor Peter Hurley, a leading national policy expert in education and Director at Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute.
In 2020 and 2024 the Mitchell Institute conducted extensive research into childcare access in Australia, producing a national study that showed childcare access in every postcode in the country, highlighting childcare ‘deserts’ (where more than three pre-school children vie for a single childcare place), and childcare ‘oases’ (where there is an oversupply of childcare places per child). The 2024 study also compared childcare access in the UK, Norway, Sweden and France.
This year Professor Hurley and team went further in their analysis, looking at nationwide growth in places, ownership, churn, and adherence to quality standards in childcare data from 2013 to 2025.
A market-based system dominated by for-profit providers
Early childhood education and care is managed very differently to other parts of the education environment.
“Unlike schools, governments are much less involved in the operation of childcare centres,” Professor Hurley explains.
One reason for this is the sector’s rapid growth.
“Early childhood education and care looked very different 30 years ago. There were very few places available. This lack of access to early learning disproportionately impacted women, especially those who wanted to return to the workforce. Over the past three decades, Federal Governments have looked at different models to increase supply of childcare,” Professor Hurley says.
“In the drive to increase access for more families – and keep costs down – Australia has taken a market-based approach to provision.”
Regulatory bodies exist to make sure providers meet minimum requirements, such as child-to-educator ratios, but many providers are also incentivised by cost-cutting.
“At its core, it is a system that rewards those who can produce the service (an hour of early learning) in the most ‘efficient’ way possible.”
“These approaches bake-in the deficiencies of low-pay and high turnover and put enormous strain on the sector. They end up rewarding those providers who can produce an hour of care in the cheapest way possible while meeting the minimum standard.”
How Melbourne’s west compares to national averages
Melbourne’s west has experienced a large growth in childcare services between 2013 to the end of 2025.
“The number of childcare places has grown from 12,800 to 31,800 (around 150 percent). This is much higher than the national rate of growth over the same period, at 80 percent.”
“Like the national trend, it is private for-profit providers who have been responsible for almost all of this growth. Private for-profit providers make up 80 percent of all childcare places in Melbourne’s west compared to 75 percent nationally.”
“Changes in the provider responsible for services, which we use to describe ‘churn’ in ownership, is less in the West of Melbourne compared to nationally.
“About 26 percent of long-day care centres in the west of Melbourne have changed hands since 2013, compared to about 32 percent nationally.
“This may be attributable to the high rates of growth in Melbourne’s west, so there has been less time for services to change hands compared to the rest of Australia.”
Where to from here?
Professor Hurley explains that the analysis highlights some of the consequences of past decisions and some of the difficulties that lie ahead.
“Australia has created a very effective system that has expanded the supply of childcare, at a relatively low cost. But these conditions are not always the best when it comes to guaranteeing safety.”
“One of the great things about the sector is the dedicated workforce. What we need to do is make the conditions right for early childhood educators to do their job properly. That will mean more money, but it is absolutely worth the investment.”
If you’re considering childcare options for your child, Professor Hurley recommends looking up quality ratings for services on startingblocks.gov.au.
“This can give a general overview. It is one piece in a big puzzle that can help make parents make the decision that is best for them,” he says.
