In its final report, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) found that many Australian organisations had failed to protect children from abuse, failed to support children who attempted to disclose abuse, and failed to respond appropriately when abuse came to light. In response to these findings, the Royal Commission recommended that:

• all child-related institutions implement nationally consistent child safe standards
• these standards be based on the Royal Commission’s recommended 10 Child Safe Standards
• the standards be mandatory for all institutions engaging in child-related work and embedded in state and territory legislation
• an independent oversight body in each state and territory has responsibility for enforcing the standards (but that this can be delegated to sector regulators e.g. school registration bodies).

In 2018, all Australian governments accepted (either in whole or in principle) recommendations of the Royal Commission. These recommendations have now been incorporated into the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (National Principles), which are broader than the Royal Commission’s Child Safe Standards, and which were endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments in February 2019. The governments of each state or territory are now at varying stages in their process of implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations and the National Principles.

Recent Developments

State and territory governments have been taking steps over recent months to seek public input into their adoption of the Royal Commission’s recommendations and the National Principles. We wrote about this in a School Governance article last year.

In December 2020, the New South Wales Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) released an Exposure Draft of the Children’s Guardian Amendment (Child Safe Scheme) Bill 2020 (NSW). The Bill proposes to amend the Children’s Guardian Act 2019 (NSW) in order to introduce a regulatory framework that implements the Royal Commission’s recommendations by requiring the implementation of the NSW Child Safe Standards and awarding the OCG independent oversight. Between December 2020 and February 2021, the OCG sought public feedback on the Bill. Prior to this, the OCG had held consultations for the development of the Bill and CompliSpace contributed a submission.

Similarly, in October 2019, the ACT Government proposed to develop a scheme to regulate the Child Safe Standards in the ACT. The ACT Government ran public consultations from November 2019 to February 2020 and is now in the process of continuing to develop their regulatory scheme.

Recently, the Tasmanian Government also published a Bill that would introduce a new child safe legislative framework and received public feedback. The Western Australian Government also recently received feedback on their development of a new independent oversight system as well as a reportable conduct scheme. This article will unpack in further detail these developments in Tasmania and Western Australia.

Tasmania

In December 2020, the Tasmanian Government published the Child Safe Organisations Bill 2020 (Tas). This draft Bill proposed a number of legislative reforms that would effectively introduce a new child safe legislative framework to implement the Royal Commission’s recommendation in Tasmania. The draft Bill proposed the following:

• establishing Principles for the Safety and Wellbeing of Children
• establishing Child Safe Standards
• requiring all organisations engaged in services involving interaction with children to embed the Principles for the Safety and Wellbeing of Children and the Child Safe Standards in policies, practices and procedures
• requiring Tasmanian Government entities to embed the Principles for the Safety and Wellbeing of Children and the Child Safe Standards in funding agreements with non-government organisations
• requiring Tasmanian Government entities to require funded non-government organisations to report annually on the implementation of, and compliance with, the Principles for the Safety and Wellbeing of Children and the Child Safe Standards through their funding agreements.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, the Tasmanian Government sought feedback on this draft Bill. CompliSpace made a submission and made a number of recommendations, including the following:

• the Tasmanian Child Safe Standards should align with the language and format of the National Principles. The Standards as they currently stand in Schedule 1 of the draft Bill are drafted with language that diverges significantly from the National Principles and are in a different order. This may complicate cross-jurisdictional compliance for organisations that have child-related organisations across different jurisdictions.
• the Tasmanian Government should assign or develop one independent oversight body to regulate the Child Safe Organisations Scheme. The draft Bill currently suggests that this responsibility will be shared across multiple government agencies. This may lead to issues in relation to consistency and limitations on oversight. It is also inconsistent with the Royal Commission’s recommendation of one independent oversight body.

Western Australia

At the end of 2020, the Western Australian Government published A Safer WA For Children and Young People 2020 Progress Report detailing their progress on implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations. The Western Australian Government reported that it is in the process of developing an independent oversight system to improve child safety in organisations in order to meet the Royal Commission’s recommendation. The key areas of focus in the development of this body are:

• identification of the powers and functions of an oversight body
• the elements required for an effective and joined-up system of independent oversight
• the nature and scope of organisations that are likely to be required to implement the National Principles over time
• approaches taken by other states and territories to maintain national consistency as recommended by the Royal Commission.

The Western Australian Government sought public input on the development of this system between November 2020 and February 2021 and will be publishing a Consultation Summary Report.

In response to the Royal Commission’s recommendations, the Western Australian Ombudsman has also released a draft Bill for public comment, the Parliamentary Commissioner Amendment (Reportable Conduct) Bill 2020 (WA). This Bill proposes legislative amendments in order to introduce a reportable conduct scheme that would require heads of organisations to report allegations or convictions of child abuse within their organisation to an independent body. Organisations with high levels of responsibility for children or that have heightened risks of child abuse (including religious institutions, childcare services and schools) would be subject to this scheme. The draft Bill also proposes that a reportable conduct finding against a person with a Working with Children Check card could lead to their reassessment. The Western Australian Ombudsman has proposed a two-year roll-out of this scheme and sought public feedback, which closed on 31 January 2021.

What Does this Mean for Schools?

As always, schools should remain aware of the changes in their jurisdictions that may affect them. Although the Royal Commission’s Final Report was released in 2017, the effects of the recommendations are still being processed and rolled out across Australia. As such, the changes to child safe requirements are ongoing and constantly developing. Schools should ensure that they are meeting all their current obligations and consider incorporating the National Child Safe Principles into their environments in anticipation of coming requirements.