In 2025, Australian media have reported horrific cases of abuse in childcare centres, where numerous children across different states were harmed by those entrusted with their care. Investigations revealed that these incidents were not isolated acts of cruelty by a few ill-intentioned individuals, but symptoms of deeper structural problems within the industry. Many alleged perpetrators remained employed due to regulatory failures and inadequate record-keeping—failures that point to a childcare system shaped more by market logics than by the welfare of children.

Government responses nationally and state based (New South Wales and Victoria), prompted by public outcry, have focused on punitive reforms: increased fines for non-compliant centres, mandatory CCTV surveillance, and a federal proposal for a national childcare worker registry. While such measures may marginally increase safety, they fail to address the core issue that even mainstream media outlets have struggled to ignore—the corrosive impact of privatisation and profit-making in childcare. The problem is not simply one of oversight but of an economic model that systematically places profit above protection. For-profit childcare providers maximise returns by cutting accountability mechanisms, reducing staff-to-child ratios, and limiting staff training—precisely the areas where quality and safety depend on public investment rather than cost reduction.

Revealingly, executives of major childcare corporations continued to receive six-figure bonuses even amidst these scandals and reports of systemic abuse. For example, G8 Education CEO Pejman Okhovat received over AU$534,000 in bonus payments in 2024—on top of a base salary of nearly AU$1 million—while Affinity Education Group CEO Tim Hickey received bonuses up to AU$300,000 during the same period. These bonuses were awarded despite the ongoing revelations of safety failures and quality breaches within their respective networks, many of which operate hundreds of centres nationwide. ABC News confirmed in September 2025 that these executive bonuses were tied to metrics such as enrolment, occupancy, and compliance, yet there was no evidence they were withheld following serious safety incidents.

This pattern reveals a profound misalignment between financial incentives and child welfare. The existing childcare subsidy system, often celebrated as expanding parental “choice,” only reinforces the problem. In practice, it channels public funds into private providers while allowing quality to deteriorate. ABC News and 7News jointly reported in August 2025 that 29 childcare services had been publicly named by the federal government for failing to meet National Quality Standards (NQS)—with some centres failing for more than seven years, and many not audited for up to five years. These standards cover areas such as children’s health and safety, educational programming, physical environment, and staff qualifications. The investigations revealed poor hygiene conditions (including mould in cot rooms), supervision failures where children were left unsupervised, and insufficient staff training leading to dangerous environments. These are not marginal lapses but systemic breaches that reflect the underlying problem: how capitalism can turn the childcare sector into a profitable deathtrap. Right now, tens of thousands of Australian children attend centres that fail to meet national standards, and a crisis of this proportion is not without precedent in this country.

In 2008, ABC Learning—then the largest childcare provider in Australia—collapsed under AU$2.7 billion in debt, threatening to leave thousands of families without care. Despite the immense social consequences, its founder, Eddy Groves, faced no lasting legal repercussions with his case closed in 2016. At the time, the federal government was forced to intervene to subsidise the centres to prevent mass closures and maintain the sector working. They had to do that because childcare is such a fundamental service to keep so many parenting professionals in the workplace, maintaining the functioning of Australian economy. Faced by the magnitude of the task, the Australian government failed and rather than seizing this moment to reclaim childcare as public infrastructure, they just paid the bill and allowed most centres to be eventually absorbed by new providers, leaving the fundamental logic of privatisation intact. The collapse of ABC Learning should have served as a warning about the perils of treating childcare as a profit-generating enterprise. Instead, Australia rebuilt the same flawed model.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific, a contrasting vision is emerging. In the United States, socialist politician Zohran Mamdani has proposed universal, free childcare for all children aged six weeks and older in New York City. His plan would fund the system through higher taxes on corporations and the city’s wealthiest residents, aiming to alleviate the financial burden on working families—where childcare can cost up to US$26,000 annually. Supporters argue that the proposal would not only promote women’s participation in the workforce but also stabilise employment within the childcare sector itself. Media coverage has framed Mamdani’s plan as a bold attempt to redefine what local governments owe their citizens, positioning childcare as fundamental social infrastructure rather than a private commodity.

This framing resonates deeply with a long socialist tradition that has understood childcare as central to women’s liberation, collective well-being, and the revaluation of care work. Thinkers like Alexandra Kollontai in the early Soviet Union insisted that childcare must stand alongside education, healthcare, and housing as a pillar of society. Similarly, Nadezhda Krupskaya placed the education and socialisation of children at the heart of revolutionary planning, recognising that the future of any society depends on how it cares for its youngest members.

Childcare is not an auxiliary service, nor a convenience for working parents—it is social infrastructure as vital as schools, hospitals, or emergency services. To continue treating it as a market commodity is to endanger both the present well-being of thousands of children and the future of the society they will inherit.