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Variable state laws ‘are putting children at risk of sexual abuse’
By Dan Box
Australian
August 15, 2016
http://goo.gl/fgXXDY
Children are being put at risk of sexual abuse because of gaps and contradictions between different state and territory legislations or systems of oversight.
“These inconsistent systems are impossible to justify,” the chairman of the royal commission, Peter McClellan, will tell the Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies conference in Sydney today.
“The safety of a child should not depend on the state or territory in which they reside,” he will say, arguing that it is time for a greater uniformity of laws across the country.
Over the past three years, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has held 42 public hearings and referred more than 1600 matters to police across the country, Justice McClellan will say. More than 60 matters are before the courts as a result.
As a result of its work, Justice McClellan will say the commission has identified inconsistencies and flaws between competing systems of child protection, particularly the lack of a national system of working-with-children checks.
“Each state and territory has its own scheme. (These) are inconsistent, complex and operate independently on each other,” he will say, with the result that they are “a blight upon the community’s efforts to provide effectively for the protection of children”.
The commission is recommending a centralised national database by which people who should not be allowed access to children can be identified.
Justice McClellan will also discuss new research into the contradictory mass of state-based oversight bodies with responsibility for child welfare across Australia, including ombudsmen, children’s commissions and children’s guardians.
He will also repeat the commission’s call for a national redress scheme to provide compensation and support to child abuse victims, saying it represents a “fundamental need … to ensure equal justice for survivors”.
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