A major investigation into Australia’s early-learning system has uncovered what appears to be a far-broader crisis in child-care safety.

Researchers and whistle-blowers compiled evidence showing almost one hundred and fifty childcare workers across the country have been convicted, charged or accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate conduct — many in the past five years.

The analysis draws on more than two hundred thousand pages of previously confidential documentation — including regulator files, court records and internal centre reports — revealing a pattern of staffing failures, weak oversight and regulatory inaction.

Among the documents: over seven hundred instances of missing, expired or unverified “Working With Children Checks”, a key safeguard designed to exclude high-risk individuals from child-care settings.

The data also shows that fewer than fifteen per cent of reports of child sexual abuse in early learning lead to charges, and only around two per cent result in convictions, indicating the incidents revealed may represent only a fraction of reality.

Experts warn this suggests that thousands of predators could have worked unnoticed within the sector.

Much of the abuse was concentrated in for-profit child-care centres, where low staffing levels, high turnover, fast-tracked training and minimal supervision created what one forensic specialist described as “prey-rich environments” for offenders.

The investigation details horrifying incidents: children strapped to high-chairs for hours, educators filming children’s genitalia, centres failing to enforce required staff-to-child ratios, and repeated regulatory breaches met only with warnings.

Former senior investigator from the national police described the system as “so easy for predators” he had witnessed them acting “with complete impunity” inside centres.

With one educator now serving life imprisonment after confessing to the abuse of 65 children, and another accused of abusing infants across twenty-three different centres, the scale of the problem is now increasingly visible.

Federal and state ministers have responded with reform proposals, including a national register of childcare staff, mandatory child-safety training, improved background checking processes and expanded surveillance measures.

The reforms are set to be phased in over the coming year.

One minister described the sector’s governance as at a “historic moment” of reckoning.

The evidence presented in the investigation signals that Australia’s childcare system has reached a breaking point: for many families, the place once trusted as a safe space is now under scrutiny.