When Christina Spark toured Little Zak's Academy in the Sydney suburb of Gladesville early last year, it seemed like the perfect place to enrol her one-year-old.
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it → tour → old
"The playground was shiny, they had soccer and yoga and swimming," she said.
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she → have → soccer
"I was pretty blown away and amazed."
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I → blow → ?
Within weeks, Spark started to notice hygiene issues, dietary instructions not being followed, her little boy's milk bottle coming home unused and babies sitting in soiled nappies.
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bottle → start → nappies
"The underlying problem was just a lack of supervision … and not enough people," she said.
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she → underlie → supervision
Then the incidents started to pile up.
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incidents → start → ?
One bite turned into two and by October her child, now 19 months old, had been bitten five times.
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child → turn → October
After months of mounting concerns, Spark pulled her son out and used her skills as an auditor to dig into the centre and the chain behind it.
"If I just looked up who owns the centre, done a little bit of digging, realised the number of enforcement actions, realised the level of profits being generated, I wouldn't have sent him there, but I just didn't know," she said.
Little Zak's is one of the country's fastest growing childcare chains, generating $142 million in revenue and $17 million in profit in 2025.
The family-owned business also has the highest proportion of centres subject to enforcement action among the country's 26 largest long daycare operators.
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business → mount → operators
At the Little Zak's centre at Shellharbour, two hours south of Sydney, the warning signs had been building for months.
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signs → build → months
Leigh Cotter said he initially blew off the incidents as kids being kids, but when they started to escalate, he raised concerns.
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he → say → concerns
"I said, 'Look, you guys really need to do something about the safety of kids, because if you don't, something serious is going to happen.'
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something → say → kids
"A month later, my son broke his leg in daycare, and I don't think they were completely honest about how it happened."
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it → break → daycare
Cotter said the centre told him his son was wearing socks indoors and had slipped and hit his head and left ankle just before pick-up.
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son → say → up
When he took him to the hospital, the doctors discovered a spiral fracture on the other leg, running from his ankle towards his knee.
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doctors → take → knee
Cotter said an educator later told him his son had been screaming in another room much earlier in the day, but staff had not realised he was seriously injured.
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he → say → day
"Six hours of walking on a broken leg — it's child abuse," Cotter said.
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Cotter → walk → leg
Four Corners put the claims to Little Zak's but it did not comment for privacy reasons.
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it → put → reasons
Since Cotter pulled his son from Little Zak's Shellharbour in May 2023, the centre has faced repeated parent complaints and regulatory action.
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centre → pull → complaints
In the past two years alone, it has been subject to four enforcement actions, including an emergency action notice over staffing ratios, which is the minimum number of educators legally required for the children in care.
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which → include → care
In August, regulators issued a further compliance notice.
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regulators → issue → notice
The centre has also been downgraded from Meeting the National Quality Standard to Working Towards, which means it is no longer meeting the nationally agreed upon standards for child care.
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it → downgrade → care
Gabrielle Meagher, an emeritus professor at Macquarie University, has spent decades researching privatised social services including childcare.
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Meagher → spend → childcare
Her analysis of the country's 26 largest long-daycare providers found the proportion of Little Zak's centres subject to enforcement action was 10 percentage points higher than the next highest, Edge Early Learning, which entered voluntary administration in August.
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which → find → August
Meagher says 56 per cent of Little Zak's centres are recorded on Starting Blocks as having been subject to enforcement action in the past two years.
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cent → say → years
She says the chain has experienced rapid expansion.
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chain → say → expansion
The family-owned company grew from 16 centres in 2021 to about 43 today.
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company → own → 43
A deeper analysis of regulatory records reveals almost 600 confirmed breaches of Little Zak's centres by the regulator between 2020 and September 2025, with 181 of them linked to inadequate supervision, inappropriate discipline and failures to protect children from harm and hazards.
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181 → reveal → harm
Childcare sector faces 'reckoning'
But the problems uncovered at Little Zak's are not isolated.
Four Corners has analysed thousands of regulatory records from across the sector, examined internal company documents, spoken to parents and educators and obtained CCTV as part of an investigation into child safety across Australia's $23 billion childcare sector.
It has uncovered serious failures at some major operators and examined the gaps that remain despite sweeping government reforms.
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that → face → reforms
ABC Investigations has been uncovering systemic failures in childcare for the past 18 months.
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Investigations → uncover → months
Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh says those stories have had a profound impact on the sector.
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stories → say → sector
"There has been a reckoning in this system over the past 12 months, and it is changing in no small part because of the way in which you have shone a light on the problems in early learning," she said.
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she → change → learning
The revelations have triggered a series of reforms including tougher penalties, mandatory child-safety training, a national worker register, tighter Working With Children Check requirements, greater powers for regulators and new powers to cut Commonwealth childcare subsidies to poorly performing providers.
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revelations → trigger → providers
"The reforms that we have put in place are the right reforms," Walsh told Four Corners.
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Walsh → put → Corners
"They are on track, and we are seeing the results of those reforms.
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we → see → reforms
So far, 120 services with a history of failing to meet quality and safety standards have been put on notice to improve or risk losing access to Commonwealth subsidies.
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services → fail → subsidies
To date, funding has been withdrawn from 12.
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funding → withdraw → 12
More than 1,300 childcare services are currently failing to meet the national quality standards, accounting for around 48,000 childcare places.
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services → fail → places
About 350 have failed twice in a row and can go on average more than three years between assessments.
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350 → fail → assessments
"Around half of the services that we have put those conditions on have turned around and have met the quality standards," Walsh said.
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Walsh → put → standards
"That is what we would like to see, but where they fail to do that or refuse to do that, we are clear that there is no place for those services in early learning.
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we → like → learning
…and 64 more, not listed.
The Aporia