2026-08-20
Responding to the closure of 65 Ignite Minds family day care centres across Victoria following an investigation by the Victorian Education and Care Regulatory Authority (VERA), Greens Early Childhood Education and Care spokesperson Senator Steph Hodgins-May said:
“We need to stop pretending that a market designed to prop up private profits can deliver the early learning system children and families deserve.
“Families are getting sick of waking up to another childcare horror story. When will enough be enough?
“While we commend VERA for its investigation and swift action, simply closing centres doesn’t address the root cause of what has gone horribly wrong with early learning in this country.
“The Commonwealth must urgently step in to support the families affected by these closures, who may now be scrambling to find alternative care and support for their children.
“But ultimately, we need a reckoning: the system is broken.
“For-profit providers have been allowed to operate to unsafe standards, putting profits ahead of care and quality education.
“Closing centres when things go wrong and putting out spot fires will never fix the underlying problem or restore families’ trust in the system.
“Families deserve a universal, high-quality and affordable early learning system where they don’t have to go to bed wondering ‘will my childcare centre be in the headlines tomorrow?’
“Until the Albanese Government confronts the fundamental failings of the market model these headlines will keep coming.”