Betrayal of Trust

Australia's childcare sector has expanded dramatically over the past decade, driven by government subsidies and growing demand from working families. More than 1.4 million children attend childcare each day. But behind the brightly coloured facades of centres across the country, a crisis had been building — one that regulators knew about, and had failed to fix.

Adele Ferguson's Betrayal of Trust investigation, broadcast as a one-hour special on ABC Four Corners in March 2025, documented shocking cases of child abuse, neglect, and injury in Australian childcare centres — and revealed the systemic failures that had allowed them to occur. The investigation was the product of more than a year of reporting, drawing on government data, court records, and interviews with families, childcare workers, and sector experts.

The National Quality Framework — the regulatory system designed to ensure the safety and quality of childcare — had significant gaps that were being exploited. Background check requirements were inconsistent across states and territories. Mandatory reporting obligations were not being consistently met. And the rapid expansion of the sector, driven by private equity investment and government subsidies, had created pressure to prioritise growth over safety.

Ferguson documented cases where children had been seriously harmed by workers who had prior records of misconduct — records that had not been adequately shared between states, or that had not been checked before employment. The investigation named specific failures in the national oversight framework and called for a national register of workers found to have engaged in misconduct.

The broadcast prompted immediate responses from state and federal governments. Several jurisdictions announced emergency reviews of their childcare regulatory frameworks. The federal government committed to a national review of background check requirements. The investigation was followed by a second major report — Hunting Ground — broadcast in October 2025, which revealed the crisis had deepened rather than abated.

Together, the Betrayal of Trust series became the most decorated journalism of 2025 and 2026. The Gold Walkley — Australian journalism's highest honour — was awarded to Ferguson and co-reporter Chris Gillett for the multi-platform investigation. The 2026 Graham Perkin Award, presented at the 50th anniversary of the prize, recognised Ferguson as Australian Journalist of the Year for the second time in her career — making her one of only four journalists in the award's history to win it twice.