Not all creches are created equal.
From the sounds of things, regulations must vary state to state. I know in ACT the staff are required to have qualifications, and there most definitely are rules around how many children per carer. That is one of the reasons I don't use the creche any more - it got too hard to find a spot for all three of my kids at the same time, because they could only have a certain number of kids from each age group for the number of carers they had on staff. Because we were regulars, the staff did get to know my children pretty well.

It sucks that you had a bad experience.