Serial child sexual abuse cases in Australian daycare centres have spurred a rush to close security gaps that let predators through the door.

New legislation will bring in a national register of childcare workers from 2026, impose compulsory safety training, ban the use of personal phones by carers and start a trial of CCTV monitoring.

It aims to address safety deficiencies in a childcare sector that has boomed thanks to government funding.

In Australia's most notorious case, nursery school worker Ashley Paul Griffith preyed on children for nearly 20 years.

He pled guilty last year to more than 300 charges of abusing and raping over 60 children -- most of them girls -- while working in childcare centres between 2003 and 2022.

Some of his victims may have been as young as 12 months old

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