Will a lightbulb go on for Australia? (doubt it)

Well, rights and wrongs aside, it's impossible for as long as Australia doesn't know what a woman is and thinks sex is changeable and men can become women to get a women-only job.

You likely have a point. Commercial childcare is the problem rather than who is employed. A commercial provider is after maximising profits not caring for children. So, community childcare? State run and regulated (and well-paid) childcare, which is therefore subsidised out of tax? Encourage parents to take long parental leave with children under 5?
Any other model than commercial childcare has to admit that making profits for businesses is not the be-all and end-all of an economy. The economy is for the people, to provide that which they need, not the other way round. We need to learn this!

A reminder again that these steps are legally useless in Australia as after Tickle v Giggle, Australian sex is changeable.

https://theconversation.com/childcare-sexual-abuse-is-mostly-committed-by-men-failing-to-recognise-that-puts-children-at-risk-260292

Article here discussing the issue. More needs to be done to protect children from abuse generally because there’s been some horrific cases of physical abuse from female childcare workers(And some sexual) but I do think it wise to acknowledge that men are a greater risk than women.

All interesting that other staff may be less willing to report their concerns about male workers for fear of being seen as discriminatory.

Whether it’s done by law or not, any parent with any common sense will vote with their feet and not place their pre school child in the care of a male who has not been extremely carefully vetted and who is not continuously monitored. This is not possible in early childhood centres so err on the side of caution and avoid the ones who employ men. Unless you personally and intimately know everything about the man involved. In families this is at least possible. Creepy uncles or grandfathers can be quietly ring fenced away from young children. Male partners should be monitored by mothers (though women often fail in this duty). Sexual abuse is so rife in society because women are told, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to give men the benefit of the doubt, over and over again. Hundreds of thousands of pedophile men became priests the world over to gain access to children. Now the spotlight is on priests they’ve slithered over into new ideologies like TWAW or feminism of the ‘babies need male teachers and excluding men from nappy changing is sexist’ variety. We are being used. A man who wants to change nappies and clean up baby puree for minimum wage all day in an almost inevitably understaffed early childhood centre when just about any other industry with similar entry barriers will pay him at least twice as much for half the bother should be regarded with some skepticism at the very least. If you want to ‘be kind’ and are so convinced that your preschooler is desperately in want of male role models, even at the risk of being molested, go ahead. But you’ve been warned.

There's a more balanced and locally grounded discussion happening on an actual Australian forum, if anyone is interested:

Should males be prohibited from working with very young children?

I won't get into the implications some people seem to be dancing around here, but I think we need to be careful not to blur lines between safeguarding, sex and discriminatory assumptions

That's an interesting point, and I can see that. If there is this one time of work where sex is inherently an issue, who is to say there aren't others? And maybe others that feminists would not like. Something maybe like military combat roles?

On the other hand, if it is true that some roles are like that, maybe that is just something we may have to live with.

That’s right. No need for the rudeness, though.

As a general discussion point and without any agenda on this: it raises the issue that aside from single sex spaces as respite and shelter, this starts the desire to legislate that in work, one of the two sexes is immutably unsuitable for given roles. There's a theoretical equivalent to say, for example, that some extremely male-dominated roles might evolve to be determined to be male-only by legislation. (I can't think of any examples that don't have echoes of old stereotypes, and would cheapen this discussion, but I'm sure one will occur to me)

It won't be possible to ban biological males in the legislative climate in Australia, we have a ruling here saying that sex is changeable.

I would support this ban despite how heartbreaking it is to legislate distrust in men around children, as a man that genuinely adores the bright spot in the darkness that happy kids bring, especially if the ban caused the government to have to sit down and consider "is it good law that sex is seen as changeable?" as a prerequisite to enacting this ban legally.

If this guy was contaminating the kids food, it sounds like he couldn't have been entirely stopped even by the kind of rule they are proposing, even someone like a cook could engage in some of whatever this creep was up to.

I think realistically, it's not going to be possible to keep all men out of even indirect contact with all children, and the downsides of doing so would likely not be worthwhile. I also think that making record checks more in depth won't make much differernce, they are already the least useful part of the systems to keep kids safe and in some ways are more about liability than safety.

I am on the fence about the proposed rule. I think that it would probably be fairly effective. I also think it's a shame not to have children having caring relationships with men, but then, this is why fathers are so important - we know that men who are not fathers but have regular contact are the biggest risk for abuse. Usually that means the mother's partner, but a daycare worker is the same kind of problem.

And yet - we don't ban mothers from bringing strange men into the home. Which would also be effective, but it would infringe on the rights of others in significant ways.

It's tricky, I personally don't think mums should introduce new partners to young children, and I am not a huge fan of institutional care for small children. But I don't see either of those as things I could compel others to agree with. And society certainly doesn't seem to agree.

A well known parenting coach and child psychologist in NZ wrote in one of his books that you should never let teenage boys babysit your young children. I was a new mum when I read it and I appreciated his bluntness on this. It stayed with me. I felt as though it gave me permission to hold the line on this. Another man in charge of home stays for students once warned me, given we had young children, to only accept female students into our home. These were both men in positions where they understood well and truly what the risks of ‘being kind’ are. Don’t be ashamed to hold all men who seek to have anything to do with your children under suspicion until they have proven otherwise. Pre verbal children can’t articulate sexual abuse. At 6 they can hopefully toilet themselves so more effective safeguarding around adult males in intimate spaces is possible and it’s easier to set clear boundaries that children can understand and articulate if they are violated, so that alarms can be raised. Don’t be naive. Yes female staff abuse kids in these places, but the risk of sexual harm is vastly reduced with females. And other forms of abuse are usually caused by under staffing, lack of adequate facilities, and not ensuring staff have the breaks they need (like we do for truck drivers - with stringent log books). Those issues are more easily mitigated. Pedophilia can not be ‘managed’ in a child care setting, no matter what you do. The only way is to keep pedophiles out. Given the vast, vast majority of pedophiles are men, this means that in many situations related to the professional care of pre verbal and pre toilet trained children, it’s best to keep all men out.

I can assure you us Australian women have already voiced the issue that female child care workers will now get all the sh*t jobs - literally, while males won't have to do those roles. It's also been raised if it's even legal.

It's a knee jerk reaction from one corporate company, and NOT the view of the general population.

It highlights that kids aren't safe anywhere unless there's two adults present to remove opportunity.

Something of a leap there, I don’t read that from the post at all.

Rather than banning men, there should be procedures that ensure no staff, make or female, can be in position where it is possible to abuse the children. Its not as simple as man= danger, woman = safe.

hundreds of children tested for STD's after their food was contaminated with bodily fluids

Jesus shuddering Christ. There really are no words.

Why not both?

So how does this proposal work in practice? If a woman has to leave the floor to change nappies and take a child to the toilet who is left in charge of the other children? A man if he exists, as again 2-4% of childcare workers are male. Why should only women have the literal shit work? How do childcare service managers make this work when already their staffing is taking a massive hit as you can get paid more as a barista with less responsibility and qualifications.Are we banning men from other vulnerable groups? The elderly, the disabled. This essentially doing the patriarchy's work for it.Rather than putting the onus on treating childcare as an essential service and funding it properly and giving workers the respect and pay they deserve. These predators find a way, I agree regulation properly implemented should make that way near impossible but banning a man from hanging a nappy isn't the magic wand

Improve the working with children checks. And recognise it isn’t just men that offend against children, unfortunately.

The charges include child rape, molestation, and hundreds of children tested for STD's after their food was contaminated with bodily fluids.

Safeguarding starts with a risk assessment, and is then an ongoing process of behaviour analysis. It applies to women as well as men, no one is saying all women are safe.
Find a way to stop men contaminating food and abusing women and children; then people can complain that safeguarding is discrimination against men.

@Scribblydoo banning men from certain areas isn’t new. We ban men from women’s single sec services because we recognise that by doing so the risk to women is greatly reduced. Why would it be wrong to do the same thing to reduce the risk to children? Child safeguarding is the most important thing here. Yes there should be a greater ration of staff to children, but that is a separate issue.