Babysitter vs nanny: what NSW law actually requires

Ask around at any kids' party and you'll hear two rules, sometimes from the same parent between bites of fairy bread: anyone who works with kids needs a Working With Children Check, and babysitters don't need anything. Both are half right. NSW splits the two cases, and which side you land on has less to do with hours than most people think.

Where the line falls

It comes down to the shape of the arrangement. Is this someone you occasionally ring when there's a wedding on, or someone in an ongoing, regular caring role in your household (they turn up every Tuesday and know where the lunchboxes live)? First one's a babysitter. Second one's a nanny, and the law treats them very differently.

Everything in the right-hand column is child-related work as NSW defines it. Nothing on the left is. And no, it doesn't matter whether your nanny lives in.

What a nanny does

A nanny is someone a family employs to look after their children, in the family's home, on the family's roster. That might be 2 school afternoons or a full working week. Either way, it's a job you'll need filled again next week.

The job is the kids' day: their meals, the school run, their activities, their washing, and the cleanup that trails behind all of it (with small kids, a job in itself), plus anything else you and your nanny agree on. Work through the checklist for settling what the job covers in the nanny hiring guide before you interview anyone. It's a much easier chat before anyone's started.

A nanny isn't a tutor or a by-the-evening babysitter, and they're definitely not your cleaner. I get the temptation (have you seen our oven?), but housework that has nothing to do with the kids is a second job. Want both? Say so up front and pay for both.

A casual nanny does the same job on looser terms: paid by the hour for the days they work, with a 25% casual loading instead of paid leave, and no set weekly hours. Not sure yet which days you need? Start casual and switch to permanent part-time once things settle. The guide to what a nanny costs per week works out both.

And an au pair? They live with the family and help with the kids as part of a cultural exchange stay, with their own visa conditions and their own pay arrangements. A nanny is an employee paid under an award.

Why the split exists

It isn't an oversight. The WWCC system was built around organisations: employers and agencies that engage child-related workers must register with the Office of the Children's Guardian and verify their workers through an employer portal. Great when there's an HR department to carry that. Your family doesn't have one (ours has a toddler who files things behind the couch), so the state had to decide who's left holding it.

Casual, occasional babysitting (think the teenager three doors down) was left outside the scheme. Ongoing, employment-shaped care was left inside it, with the verification duty landing on the parent because there's nobody else to hand it to. I think that's a sensible trade-off, with a catch people don't see coming: hire a nanny, and verifying their Check is your job. Nobody's going to remind you.

What this means in practice

If you are hiring a nanny, au pair, or tutor

Start with people who've already said they want regular work: nannies near you, suburb by suburb. Ask for their WWC number, family name and date of birth, and verify the Check before day one. It's free and takes about 2 minutes, and how to check a babysitter's WWCC walks you through each step.

Do it even for a friend of a friend. Especially then, because that's exactly when you'll be tempted to skip it.

If you are booking a casual babysitter

There's no legal requirement, so it becomes a judgement call. Mine is to ask anyway. Every time. It costs you 2 minutes and costs the sitter nothing if they hold one.

Not having one isn't a dealbreaker, though. A 17-year-old on their first sitting job won't have one, and that's completely normal. It just means the referee calls and the meeting beforehand have more work to do.

If you are the sitter

A Check costs $112 and makes you a lot easier to hire. Parents like me will ask, so if you're sitting often enough for it to be real income, it pays for itself fast.

What we ask for

Sitters here tell us what work they want: casual babysitting, regular ongoing work, or both (plenty pick both). Whichever they choose, they don't need a Check to list. The law doesn't require one for casual babysitting, and where it does, verifying it is the family's job.

What we do instead is make the difference visible. Sitters can opt in to verification: we check a government ID against a matching selfie and check their WWCC status directly with the Office of the Children's Guardian. Verified profiles carry a badge showing the month we checked, and profiles without one say which of the two checks is still outstanding, right where the badge would sit. Nobody here can tick a box and appear verified.

The things the law does not cover at all

Neither side of the line says a word about whether someone is any good at this. A Working With Children Check is a screening against records. It won't tell you whether someone can look after your child (or hold their nerve when a toddler decides bedtime is optional). For that, whichever side you're on, 3 things do most of the work.

None of that is required of you. Do it anyway: it's where you'll learn most of what you want to know about a sitter. We've got no family nearby, so we've run that list for every sitter who's minded our kids, and the referee calls told us more than any interview did.