Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, just as we did in the other place, the Greens are pleased to be supporting this Registration to Work with Vulnerable People Amendment Bill of 2025. We’d like to acknowledge the work of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, provoked as they were, to take action given the horrific situation that was outlined by the member for Murchison.
These amendments, and in fact that decision by SCAG was made relatively recently. While ideally legislation has a longer consultation period than two weeks, I think we can all agree in here, that these amendments should be prioritised. They should not be contentious. They will harmonise our system to a significant extent with other jurisdictions so that if a person who has registration, or is applying for registration, has that registration denied or cancelled in another jurisdiction, then the registrar here – rather than conducting a risk assessment, which is provided for in the current act – must cancel that person’s registration.
We acknowledge that very strong support for these amendments came from Carers Tasmania, the Tasmanian Bar Association, the Association of Massage Therapists, the Country Women’s Association in Tasmania, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare. We also want to acknowledge that the Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People was consulted and proposed further amendments which were accepted as part of this process.
As I understand it, our amendments go further than other jurisdictions to this point, and I make the point that the original legislation was not necessarily nation‑leading in 2013; but it went further than every other jurisdiction apart from the Australian Capital Territory. Until that point, Tasmania was the only jurisdiction in the country that didn’t have a system of registration to work with children. I know this because I was the minister for human services at the time, and it took three years of fighting through Cabinet to have approval to establish this scheme through statute, and secure funding in the budget.
At the time we made the decision not to restrict the registration scheme to children and young people because we recognised that vulnerability comes in many forms: people who are aged and have mobility challenges, who are isolated can be highly vulnerable. People who live with a disability, highly vulnerable. People from culturally and linguistically‑diverse backgrounds, particularly older people of a called background, can be highly vulnerable.
We enacted legislation here in 2013 that created a scheme in eight parts, that established a registration to work with vulnerable people that began with the registration scheme for children and young people, and then over subsequent years included other cohorts of vulnerability into that registration scheme. As I said at the time, working with vulnerable people registration is not the panacea; it is one part, and an important part of a protective framework for vulnerable people. We have here now in Tasmania, as a result of the work of the commission of inquiry, the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework, a reportable conduct scheme, stronger obligations on employers to make sure that their organisations are child safe, and that where there is conduct that potentially puts a vulnerable person at risk, then it is mandatorily reported.
As a result of that horrific and extensive abuse of trust outlined by the honourable member for Murchison, as I understand it, both Victoria and New South Wales are now moving towards a mandatory training regime, if you like, for people who seek registration, whether they be paid employees or volunteer employees, and I ask the Leader for the Government to respond to a question that was raised in the briefing this morning, on the record, about moves to ensure that a person who receives registration to work with vulnerable people is provided with training that makes it clear what appropriate conduct is, how to identify the risk, and how to make sure that you, as the person with the registration, are not acting in a way that exposes a vulnerable person to risk.
I’ve had stakeholders come to us and ask why isn’t Tasmania making sure that people who have a registration to work with vulnerable people are trained.
I understand that because we have a Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework in place, as a result of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that there are obligations on employers to make sure that their employees are not posing a risk to children and young people, because they have to be child safe organisations. However, what do we know about how extensive and effective that training is? Is it simply to be a child safe organisation and to comply? Is it a one‑off, every year training? I know that in some government agencies, for example, there are training modules that are provided online, and I wonder how effective they are. I think that people with a lived experience of being abused or harmed should be able to inform whatever training module we may put in place for people who are registered to work with vulnerable people.
I have some questions just relating to the scheme generally, honourable Leader: is it possible to provide Council with information about how many people were reported to the registrar this year, and that is this measurable financial year that’s just passed, for inappropriate behaviours towards a vulnerable person, including child grooming, harm and abuse? How many investigations following those notifications were undertaken by the registrar, given that they’d have to undertake a risk assessment on the basis of the information that’s been provided to them? Did those notifications and any subsequent assessments result in referrals to the Director of Public Prosecutions? Were any charges laid, as far as the Leader for Government’s advice could provide for, and over that past year, how many registrations to work with vulnerable people were cancelled?
Given that we know the registration process is much more than a police check, and at its best is a thorough and integrated risk assessment, can the Leader for Government explain what is taken into account by the registrar in the risk assessment process and how that will change as a result of the amendments, given that the amendment provides for the immediate cancellation or denial of registration following an adverse or a negative determination in another jurisdiction? So, just to provide some layered information about the risk assessment process, because we know that there are predators everywhere.
As a parent, when you send your kids off into the world to childcare or to school, you want to believe that they’re in good hands and that they will be safe. The registration to work with vulnerable people is one part of that reassurance; so is the child safe organisations and reportable conduct scheme, but there are cultural issues here in Tasmania too.
These amendments are positive and overdue because it has been 12 years since the principal act was passed by parliament unamended. These changes are really important. What we heard this morning in the briefing was that the technology that’s behind the capacity to prevent a predator with a registration card in their pocket from harming a vulnerable person is held by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and there is a National Reference System database. As we understood from the briefing this morning, that database is regularly updated and there’s a process here in Tasmania, through the registrar of checking in with that database.
I would like clarity about how that works. Is it that in another jurisdiction a person has their registration denied or cancelled and fed into the national database? Is there a notification process for other jurisdictions? Or is it something that requires active checking with the National Reference System database?
With those few words and questions, I’m glad to be able to support this strengthening and improvement to the Registration to Work with Vulnerable People Act of 2013. I am impressed by the Standing Council of Attorneys‑General taking such speedy action. They’re not known for it as a ministerial council. But not that long after Australians were revolted and horrified by the abuse of so many small people by someone who parents entrusted their babies to the SCAG has presented to jurisdictions around the country, a model for harmonisation that will provide one extra layer of protection for children and young people. But that protection, as we know, is a responsibility that falls on us all, all the time.
These are good amendments. I am very happy to support them.
I want to, in closing, acknowledge that it is National Survivors Day, where we honour the lives and the courage of survivors of sexual assault and institutional abuse, their supporters and their whistleblowers.
There’s a particular young Tasmanian who is in my mind now whose evidence to the commission of inquiry was catalytic to its findings. Whose abuser had a Registration to Work with Vulnerable People card, whose life, whose childhood was shattered, who was let down by the state at multiple levels, not least of which her abuser was known by people in positions of authority to be behaving inappropriately towards this young person. Who was let down by the state, was let down by Tasmania Police, was let down by the Registrar to Work with Vulnerable People. I often think of this brave young woman, the courage required of her, to survive that, to endure it, and then to stand before the world and tell your story. That’s some courage.
Mr President, on this National Survivors Day, I honour and acknowledge all survivors of sexual assault and childhood abuse. I acknowledge their trauma is lifelong.
