Excerpts

Bosses at Australia’s largest for-profit childcare providers received pay rises and bonuses worth up to $500,000 last year, despite multiple safety breaches and the employment of a man subsequently charged with multiple child sexual offences.

The generous salaries have sparked calls for boards to consider clawing back some of money, given outrage over safety failures and recent apologies from chief executives.

The G8 Education chief executive, Pejman Okhovat, secured a short-term bonus worth $534,426 for meeting performance targets last year. His base salary was increased from $930,770 to $956,468 last year.

G8 Education provides annual bonuses to executives who meet performance targets related to financial performance, enrolment levels, staff retention, and safety and compliance.In 2024, it exceeded its target of centres meeting national quality standards.

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In July the alleged sex offender Joshua Dale Bown, 26, was charged with more than 70 offences involving children, including at a Melbourne centre managed by G8 Education. Brown worked at the centre in early 2024. G8 Education has repeatedly apologised for “the pain this has caused”.

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Guardian Australia asked G8 Education whether the bonus payments were appropriate, given safety breaches at some of its centres. A spokesperson did not answer the question directly, but said its bonuses were transparently disclosed and reviewed on an annual basis.

Tim Hickey, the chief executive of another for-profit provider, Affinity Education Group, told the inquiry he wasn’t sure whether his bonus payments of up to about $300,000 had been docked as a result of safety breaches.

The inquiry was told that breaches at Affinity childcare centres were 70% higher than the NSW average in 2024, up from 30% in 2021 when the company was bought by Quadrant Private Equity.

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