If 2025 was the year the childcare sector faced a reckoning, then 2026 should be a year of action.

A litany of failures and a lack of transparency put the sector firmly in the spotlight last year, and what was exposed was disturbing, particularly for parents who entrust their vulnerable little ones to professionals they trust to protect them. A lot of the issues that have bedevilled childcare have festered for years, but came into national focus as an issue of urgent concern thanks to dogged and difficult journalism, not only from The Sun-Herald but also from Gold Walkley winners Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett at the ABC.

The scale of the problem was shocking, and it was reinforced by a NSW parliamentary inquiry that hauled in the chief executives of large organisations for questioning about how they were working to keep children in their care safe, and examined failings of the laws and regulations that govern how centres operate.

Federally, Education Minister Jason Clare introduced reforms, and all the states and territories signed new mandatory child-safety measures. In NSW, while the parliamentary inquiry is due to finish its report by the end of March, the Labor government acted anyway to change the laws. Late last year, changes were introduced to force high-risk childcare centres to publicly display compliance breaches in places parents can see and to impose a 900 per cent increase in penalties, among 30 changes to “prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our youngest learners and restore parents’ trust in early childhood education and care”.

The swift action is starting to bear fruit. As Emily Kowal reports today, a Sydney childcare centre that failed to meet national standards for more than 12 years has become the first victim of the clampdown on the sector. The family-owned childcare centre Fun2Learn in Rosehill closed its doors permanently on Friday, after the department deemed it posed an unacceptable risk to children because of its long record of poor quality and compliance. The examples of breaches ran the gamut from incomplete verifications of working with children checks, inadequate supervision and unlabelled bottles of diluted chemicals, through to poor hygiene and safe food practices, a lack of emergency provisions for asthma and anaphylaxis, and a padlocked emergency exit.

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The owner of the service feels she has been made a scapegoat. While there might be some sympathy for the argument that a small, family-run operation should be given some latitude, it should be remembered that it was “working towards” compliance for more than a decade. And there is merit too in the argument that this centre is not necessarily the state’s worst offender: other childcare operators have had major incidents and continue to operate, and these should also be held to account.

The government has taken a good first step, but this is no time for a victory lap. The work, not only of the government and regulators but the operators themselves, to win back trust and restore confidence is only now beginning.