AUSTRALIA
The Australian
August 15, 2016
DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10
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.
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