Led by Minister for Education and Minister for Children and Youth, Jo Palmer, the Tasmanian Government is implementing a comprehensive set of reforms to enhance child safety within the early childhood education and care sector.
This initiative, driven by the paramount importance of protecting children, includes new national measures such as a national register for workers and mandatory child safety training, as well as an increase in regulatory checks and penalties for non-compliance. These changes are the result of collaboration with the Australian Government and other states and territories to ensure a consistent and robust approach to child protection across the country.
Media release – Jo Palmer, Minister for Education and Minister for Children and Youth, 22 August 2025
Keeping children in early childhood education and care safe
The Tasmanian Government is strengthening child safety across the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector.
Minister for Education and Minister for Children and Youth, Jo Palmer, said Tasmania is progressing child safety reforms to ensure children are supported and protected.
“The safety of our children will always come first, and we want families to have peace of mind that their children are safe,” Palmer said.
“We have acted quickly to support our educators and providers with clear guidance, more resources and stronger oversight.
“We already have strong measures in place, but we will keep lifting the bar.
“Every child deserves to be safe, supported and to thrive in their early learning years.”
We have also been collaborating with the Australian Government and other states and territories to deliver reform.
“Today I’ve met with fellow Ministers from around Australia and we have worked together to agree on additional measures to strengthen child safety across the country,” Palmer said.
“It’s been great to see the collaboration across states and territories and with the ECEC sector to introduce extra barriers to reduce the risk for children in care.”
New barriers include the establishment of a national register of workers in the sector, mandatory child safety training for workers, the trialling of CCTV in centres and increased penalties for non-compliance.
Changes to the National Quality Framework to embed additional child safety protections in the National Regulations and National Quality Standard will come into effect this year.
National Quality Framework (NQF) Child Safety Guides have been released to provide information, practical tools and guidance in meeting obligations.
These new measures build on Tasmania’s existing strong child safety safeguards including mandatory Working with Vulnerable People Registration for all educators; DECYP’s regulatory oversight of education and care and childcare; and the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework (the law to keep children safe in organisations) overseen by the Office of the Independent Regulator.
Tasmania has responded quickly to put additional safeguarding and child safety arrangements in place, including:
Making Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) Safeguarding Training available to the ECEC sector;
Stronger collaboration between DECYP, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, the Office of the Independent Regulator, the Department of Justice, Tasmania Police, and others, working together to strengthen child safety measures;
More frequent and targeted regulatory checks; and
Working with providers and services to strengthen protections and support child safe practices.
We recognise that this is a challenging time for the ECEC sector and we are so proud of our early childhood educators and the work they do.
We are committed to working alongside them as important measures to keep our children safe are implemented.
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