‘Unsatisfactory’: Fury amid revelations working with children check reforms could take up to a year

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has revealed it could take up to 12 months to ensure convicted criminals applying for working with children checks (WWCC) cannot evade notice by applying interstate. Ms Rowland said reform was possible “within certainly the next 12 months” so long as she secured support from state and territory counterparts at a meeting of the country’s attorneys-general today. “We envisage that the most immediate and urgent outcome is to achieve that ‘banned in one, banned in all’ aspect in the near term,” Ms Rowland told ABC Radio National on Friday morning. “In the longer term, there needs to be a bar raised right across the states and territories to strengthen those criteria for working with children risk and exclusions. “In terms of timing, these are matters that will be discussed today, so I don’t want to pre-empt those outcomes … (but) in terms of the most immediate one to achieve — ‘banned in one, banned in all’ — I would like to think that this is something that is certainly capable of being done within certainly the next 12 months, if we can have a better sense of that following today’s meeting, then that will be a good thing.” The Albanese government has proposed banning nationally anyone barred from working with children in one jurisdiction. Opposition leader Sussan Ley said a 12 month wait for reform of the WWCC system was unacceptable and “completely unsatisfactory”. She claimed the government’s response to reports of alleged child abuse lacked urgency, despite Anthony Albanese calling them a “wake up call” for governments nationwide. “The PM has talked a big game on fixing these issues but twelve months to deliver this isn’t good enough,” Ms Ley said. “We’ve done our bit in the federal parliament to work with the government to pass new laws but it is now up to the Prime Minister to lead and finish the job. “The States and territories need to get their act together and accelerate this critically important piece of work to protect our kids.” Ms Ley said there needed to be “stronger leadership” on the issue, and that the states and territories must be forced to act faster. “Given the crisis we are seeing in our childcare centres, twelve months for the first set of changes is completely unsatisfactory,” she said. Multiple states and territories are grappling with the fallout from multiple high-profile cases of alleged abuse at childcare centres, namely in NSW and Victoria. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan last month announced measures for all childcare centres in the state to be required to ban personal mobile devices from September 26, and launched an “urgent review into child safety” the findings of which are due on Friday. Further north, a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the childcare sector in NSW was told by a senior cop managing the child abuse squad that offenders “shop around” for centres to offend at and urged for a database to be establish for police to be able to access. Asked about Friday’s meeting of the country’s Attorneys-General, NSW Premier Chris Minns said he was “more than happy to have harmonization across the states” and that it was important that the Labor government pursue reform. “There can’t be any margin for error when we’re dealing with young people, when we’re deal with children, and I know for many parents they want to make sure that we’re doing everything possible to keep children safe,” he said. Asked about whether the possible 12-month wait floated by Ms Rowland was too long, Mr Minns said he could understand why it might take time to “harmonize a national database”, but that the public wanted it done “as soon as possible”. “We expect all states to live to what NSW is doing, and certainly we’re not going to take anything off the table when it comes to regulation,” he said. “As soon as the national database is up and running, we’ll comply with it. “ I think that it’s common sense to say that if someone’s been struck off in Western Australia, then that’s a leading indicator that they shouldn’t be able to have a working with children’s check in NSW. “The only guarantee I can give is that we’ll act as soon as possible, we’ll make sure the funds are available.”