The Education Amendment Bill currently before the house removes the obligation to get a Police check for people who look after babies and young children unsupervised at gyms and mall childcare services.
Labour may have over-regulated but this goes too far.
Tolley promised she wouldn’t do this but has broken her word. She said in the house parents should ask childcare staff if they are pedophiles. And the woman is a Minister.
But you can bet when the first offence occurs she won’t be there to support the child and the parents.
I watched the debate and I got confused with the definition of which childhood center. All seemed to be talking about drop off creches, but defined as kindy – no more than 2 hours?
Apparently the select committee all agreed including the Nats and it was not a great debate. It was then left off, but the Nats did not care enough to interrupt their schedule by rewriting the bill.
Someone mentioned in home abuse – If there is a known sex offender in a house with kids CYPS has the ability to judge, check and remove children if necessary. One case in Palmy where no abuse reported but the mum lost her kids because she moved in a boyfriend who was a registered sex offender and was told to choose.
It is worth noting that it’s not only sex offenders that would be flagged during police checks.
Whilst we are are rightly focussing on the worst of the worst, a routine check would also pick up on people with drug, assault, and dishonesty convictions. All of which I’m sure we’d all agree would not be chosen by us as carers of our children.