A national system will be established to track the criminal history of those with a working with children check (WWCC), with the federal government committing $37 million over five years.
The pilot of the National Continuous Checking Capability (NCCC) comes more than a decade after the royal commission into child sexual abuse first called for such a system.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the NCCC will be ready from the end of 2025 to provide “continuous, near real-time monitoring of changes to criminal history information for WWCC holders, significantly strengthening safeguards for children and young people”.
While the Commonwealth is paying for the NCCC, states and territories will be responsible for funding changes to their own systems that will be connected to it.
There will not be a deadline for states and territories to sign up to the program, but the pilot will be ready for them to join by the end of the year.
Attorney-generals will meet today to discuss the pilot program.
Rowland said child safety was a “top priority” for the government and that they are “progressing a coordinated and ambitious reform agenda to achieve meaningful consistency across jurisdictions for when a person is suitable to hold a WWCC and when they should be excluded”.
“This addresses existing gaps and inconsistencies and will improve protections for children and young people.”
In August 2015, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released a standalone report into the WWCC, with the report identifying inconsistencies in regulation between jurisdictions.
A key loophole highlighted in the report was that a person with adverse records in one jurisdiction could get clearance elsewhere because records aren’t available interstate.
Five states have since recognised interstate decisions against those applying for or holding a WWCC, including NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.
The ACT, Northern Territory and Western Australia have committed to putting forth legislation to close the loophole by the end of the year.
In October this year, a Four Corners investigation exposed how Australia’s early childhood education and care services have allowed child abuse to occur by exploiting a lack of regulation and staff.
The Four Corners team found that in the last 10 years, almost 150 educators were convicted, charged, or had accusations levelled against them for inappropriate conduct or child sexual abuse. Forty-two people have been convicted, with half of those in the last five years, and another 14 are involved in current court cases.