A leading Melbourne journalist has labelled calls to ban men from working in childcare centres as “offensive” and “ridiculous”.
The calls come in the wake of a man being charged with 70 offences at a Melbourne childcare facility.
Childcare worker Joshua Brown, 26, faces charges related to eight victims who attended a Point Cook childcare centre between April 2022 and January 2023.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
Sunrise host Nat Barr on Thursday questioned journalist Justin Smith and Sunshine Coast mayor Rosanna Natoli about the idea men should be disallowed from working with young children following the high-profile case.
“There are calls to ban men from childcare centres. People are frightened and angry. What national response do we need?” Barr asked Smith.
Smith replied: “Talking about banning men from (working in childcare), I just find that offensive and ridiculous.
“If we put these other (recommendations from the royal commission) in place, had they been in place, and got them working, had the experts working on it, we wouldn’t be talking about it right now.”
Smith accused the government of ignoring expert opinion by not implementing the royal commission recommendations from 2015, despite spending millions of dollars on the report.
“We had a royal commission. We have looked into this. We’ve had some very, very smart people from child (protection) foundations, from former commissioners, talking about it,” he said.
“We knew what the problems were. And next to nothing had been done about it.
“I mean, the working with children check system needs a complete overhaul, it needs to be made national, it needs to be put on a complete registry around the country and a database.
“We know all this. And now, we’re scrambling to get it right. I know there’s a ‘better late than never’ but it’s a very tough thing to tell victims’ families.
“In our courts in Victoria we’ve seen child sex offenders who walk without jail as well.
“What kind of message does that send to predators? We’ve been getting this so unbelievably wrong, and that anger that people are feeling right now is not just for the alleged crimes themselves, but for the bloody inaction that has been surrounding this industry.”
Natoli was also questioned about the call.
“We know we need urgent action, obviously, because this is such a serious issue,” Natoli said.
“Right across the country right now, as parents are getting ready to drop their kids to childcare, they feel real fear.
“We as a society have let them down.
“An absolutely massive failure to the people we should be protecting the most, our most precious resource. Our children.
“So right across the country, as we are saying ‘how could this happen?’.
“We need to have a really clear indication from our governments that enough is enough, now is the time, because more talk about this is too much talk.
“We really need to ensure that our children are protected.
“I can’t even believe they’re still talking about this in 2025, 10 years after a royal commissioner said ‘do this, this and this’, (yet) here we are.
“I mean, it was all based on proper evidence.
“It is not just lobby groups that are just pushing their own barrows here.
“We spent millions. We spent a fortune on it and, yes, ‘absolutely, we all agree with this’ and nothing happened.”