If institutional failures and coverups for paedophile predators is wrong, it’s wrong no matter what the institution is. Anyone who hyper-focuses on the failures of ideological enemies, while turning a blind eye to the wrongdoings of their ‘side’, should be condemned just as harshly as another institution that is failing children and enabling predators.
While governments and the legacy media have obsessively focused on the churches’ shameful past of covering up the existence of predators in its ranks, public schools have been almost completely ignored. Despite the schools’ identical (if not even worse) record of not only harbouring paedophiles but covering up for, and at times actively enabling, them.
Now, we learn, something not very different allowed shocking accused childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown to perpetuate his reign of abuse for far too long.
Victoria’s former commissioner for children and young people warned the state government three years ago that “children will be abused” if it continued to starve a vital oversight scheme of funds.
Liana Buchanan pleaded for years with the state Labor government for the cash needed to properly run the Reportable Conduct Scheme that failed to act on red flags over accused childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown.
Buchanan repeatedly warned both the Department of Families and its political bosses, privately and publicly, that risks to children were growing as her agency could afford to investigate fewer and fewer of the cases reported to it, and that abusers would be left free to offend as a result.
Which is exactly what happened.
After Buchanan’s resignation in March from the Commission for Children and Young People, the top post remains vacant while the state confronts its most serious childcare safety crisis and the acting commissioner, Meena Singh, holds down two full-time jobs […]
The state opposition said on Tuesday that the government’s choice to ignore Buchanan’s warnings had resulted in the commissioner’s “worst fears” allegedly coming true, while the government defended its commitment to the commission and its work.
The Victorian government has, since the news of Brown’s arrest became public, announced a ‘sweeping review’ of the childcare sector – which is far too late.
But Buchanan warned in annual reports in 2023 and 2024 that each year her agency was being forced by a lack of cash to reduce the number of reports of child safety risks or offences that could be “fulsomely examined”. In a separate submission, Buchanan also said that delays risked later referrals and led to people known to pose a risk to children to continue working with children for “an extended period”.
Lo and behold…
While the former commissioner tried to warn the state Labor government of the danger posed to children, two substantiated reports against Brown alleging non-sexual physical aggression against children in his care at two centres, operated by for-profit chain G8 Education, came into the commission’s system in mid-2023 and early 2024.
But no move was made to review the alleged offender’s working with children check, with the commission using its discretion to not escalate the cases for further action, clearing the way for Brown to continue his work as an early childhood educator until his arrest in May.
Yet, Brown had been fired from at least three childcare jobs before his arrests. A chain of employers in the chronically short-staffed industry failed to pick up on glaring errors and lies on his resume.
Childcare centres are still trying to cover their arses. Two employers Brown worked for claimed they only found about the child abuse charges when a suppression order was lifted at the start of July. But centres were being served with search warrants as early as May. Yet, another provider says, that it was a suspected child abuse case was obvious from the start.
“It was written there clearly. We knew how serious it was,” said a manager at a small provider who was later approached by police. “We just couldn’t tell families, of course, until the suppression order lifted” […]
There is no suggestion any of Brown’s former employers knowingly misled police. Many, including G8 and Affinity, now say they want an overhaul of oversight within the sector, including a national registry of childcare educators – as schools already have – and they are rolling out internal improvements such as CCTV cameras.
But some of Brown’s employers also failed to pick up glaring errors on his resume at the time of hiring him, according to former workplaces and associates of Brown, who say his CV exaggerated or “fudged the details”.
Yet, despite substantiated reports in 2023 and 2024 that Brown physically (but not, to their knowledge sexually) assaulted children, his Working With Children clearance was never reviewed.
Other employers smelled the rat and acted. But, each time he was fired, Brown, with a valid Working With Children clearance, simply moved on.
But who wants to take bets that no one in government bureaucracy will ever be held to account?
