On 21 March 2017, the Queensland Government introduced a Bill proposing to amend Queensland child protection legislation to include ministers of a religious denomination or society who perform work for, or have an association with, a school, to the list of mandatory reporters of sexual abuse.

Under the Child Protection and Education Legislation (Reporting of Abuse) Amendment Bill 2017 (the Bill), religious representatives who perform work for, or have an association with, a school, will be obligated to report sexual abuse, or likely sexual abuse, of a person under the age of 18 at a government or non-state school to Child Safety Services.  Religious representatives mean a minister of a religious denomination or society and the Bill lists the following examples:

• priest;
• pastor;
• bishop;
• rabbi; and
• imam.

The Bill amends the Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld) and the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006 (Qld), meaning that if the changes are passed by the Government, a school's child protection and registration policies and procedures will need to be reviewed.

What is the reason for the change?

The Explanatory Memorandum that accompanied the Bill's introduction explains that this addition to the mandatory reporter category has been debated for many years but never more widely than in the period before and during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission). The Royal Commission public hearings have led to widespread revelations of childhood sexual abuse by religious representatives from a number of denominations across Australia. Accordingly, the proposed reform "follows the widespread and worldwide revelations of childhood sexual abuse by clergy."

This is the second time in six months that the Queensland Government has increased the scope of that state's mandatory reporting laws. In September 2016, the mandatory reporting regime was extended to the early childhood education and care sector. This amendment, colloquially named ‘Mason’s Law’, will commence on 1 July 2017.

These proposed legislative reforms in Queensland are yet another example of state and territory governments around Australia tightening their child protection laws in response to Royal Commission and state/territory-based inquiries and in anticipation of the Royal Commission’s final report which is due at the end of 2017.

Mandatory reporting: Different in every jurisdiction

While broadening the scope of mandatory reporting obligations in Queensland schools is a positive step for the Queensland Government to take, it should be noted that there is still a great deal of inconsistency in mandatory reporting laws across Australia. The Royal Commission commissioned and funded a research project conducted by Associate Professor Ben Matthews in 2014, "Mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse in Australia: A legislative history", that compared mandatory reporting laws around the country.

In the research findings, Associate Professor Matthews describes reforms similar to Queensland’s most recent amendments to mandatory reporting laws as occurring in “piecemeal and irregular fashion” and that while new reported groups have been added, they remain inconsistent between jurisdictions.

While each state and territory has mandatory reporting laws, sometimes referred to as ‘mandated reporting’ or ‘mandatory notifications’, the Royal Commission’s published research on the subject suggests that there are more differences than similarities.

Mandatory reporting legislation in each jurisdiction has many of the same features and have a similar schematic approach according to Matthews, however there are several significant differences between the laws. Most notably, these include:

• different mandatory reporter groups (possibly the most significant difference according to Matthews) which see some jurisdictions like the Northern Territory mandating that “all citizens” are mandatory reporters and others like Western Australia having a relatively restrained group of mandated reporters;
• different states of mind required to activate the reporting duty as well as different situational scope - for example whether a reasonable belief of abuse is required, or a reasonable suspicion, a reasonable belief that abuse is likely, or a reasonable suspicion that the child is at risk of abuse, and the list goes on;
• different extent of harm activities required to activate the reporting duty -  for example whether mandatory reporting extends to emotional or psychological abuse as it does in Queensland or whether the reporting duty only extends to sexual abuse as it does in Tasmania; and
• different definitions of a ‘child’ to whom the reporting duty is owed – jurisdictional definitions vary, a 'child' can be defined as under 16, 17 or 18 across jurisdictional borders, and some jurisdictions such as Victoria, cite different definitions for who is a ‘child’ depending on the reporting obligation referred to.

Why have uniform or federal mandatory reporting laws?

As mentioned above, each jurisdiction has mandatory reporting laws which impose a vaguely similar obligation on a varying group of reporters – to report a belief or suspicion of a type of abuse to a government child protection agency when the belief or suspicion is formed at work. So why should we have uniform or federal mandatory reporting laws? Plainly, it just makes sense.  Some may think it is unusual that the Royal Commission is yet to make this recommendation as it did in its Working with Children Check final report. See our School Governance article on the recommendation for a national working with children scheme here.

A key argument for a federal mandatory reporting scheme is that a number of child-related organisations, including, for example, religious organisations that govern non-government schools in Australia, operate across state and territory borders. Training individuals on their mandatory reporting obligations that are applicable across Australia would certainly save a great deal of administrative burden for these sorts of organisations, particularly where, for example, a group like Scouts Australia often takes children and staff and volunteers across state lines for overnight camps. In 2016 the indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl was not reported for four days at a Scouts Australia Jamboree due to confusion about varying reporting avenues across state lines, among other factors.

Additionally, for the same reason that a federal working with children check was recommended by the Royal Commission – to stop offenders seeking out states with higher thresholds for reporting and less rigorous background checking – a federal mandatory reporting scheme would afford the same reporting threshold to all jurisdictions. This may then lead to increased reporting of grooming behaviours for example across Australia rather than just in Victoria where grooming falls under the mandatory reporting scheme as a form of sexual abuse.