A childcare executive at Affinity Education, Nishad Alani, dismissed parental concerns during a July meeting, urging parents to stop being emotional while addressing serious safety allegations involving staff member Joshua Brown, who faces 73 charges including child rape.

This incident highlights a broader culture of cover-ups within the organization.

Internal issues related to safety and accountability persist, amid ongoing investigations into alleged abuse at multiple centres.

Recent incidents include the arrest of a 21-year-old employee in Brisbane for indecent treatment of a child, and the company being placed on a government watch list due to misconduct and poor record-keeping.

Affinity Education has recorded over 1,700 breaches between 2021 and 2024 across its 254 centres, including failures to recognize employment history errors.

Alani later apologized for his dismissive language, emphasizing the importance of communication, transparency, and trust, and noted that safety upgrades at the centre had been completed.

Leaked internal policies revealed staff were instructed to prioritize crisis management over police notification when handling child safety allegations, raising serious concerns about transparency.

Parents criticized Victorian state manager Debbie Smith for making inappropriate comparisons between a current educator and the accused Brown, implying parental oversight was to blame.

Joshua Brown, accused of abusing babies and toddlers at G8 Education’s Creative Garden Point Cook and possibly at other centres, is under police investigation for further abuse at an Affinity-operated centre in Essendon.

Parents described Alani’s conduct as dismissive and inappropriate, criticizing his repeated urges for parents not to become emotional and his trivialization of the harm discussed.