When Governments implement child protection legislation that is practically unenforceable it reveals their real motives. It is worse than useless because it gives parents a false reassurance than institutions will be made to deliver on their duty of care. Politicians continue to stick their head in the sand when it comes to making institutional leaders accountable for failing children in their care.

A distinction needs to be made between legislation that is unenforceable, separate from regulators that are under-resourced to conduct the necessary audit and enforcement activities. There also needs to be a political appetite to enforce the law, and this has been missing to date.

The growing crisis in the Victorian Childcare sector sees the Government scrambling to retrofit longstanding legislation with the necessary enforcement provisions. From the outset the Victorian legislation was never designed to actively compel Childcare operators to meet the requisite child safe standards. Belatedly the Victorian Government is empowering and resourcing regulators to conduct unannounced spot visits to check compliance, with fines to be issued for non-compliance. This is in the wake of 2000 Victorian families awaiting STI tests for their children who were exposed to a serial paedophile who worked at over 20 Childcare Centres over many years.

This is clearly a case of trying to “slam close the gate after the horse has bolted”. The Tasmanian legislation is effectively a ‘cookie-cutter’ of the Victorian legislation and replicates all of its enforcement flaws. In 2022 when the Tasmanian legislation was being drafted the Department of Justice (DoJ) was told by the Victim-Survivor reference group that the limitations of the Victorian legislation were becoming obvious – specifically weak enforcement provisions. Victim-survivors advocated that the Tasmanian legislation avert these specific weaknesses, but the DoJ chose to ignore these concerns referencing a development timeline that would not permit such revisions.

A recent article in the Tasmanian Examiner explores an apparent ongoing failure of the legislation which saw an ‘educator’ fired from a local private school for grooming students, who was subsequently employed by another school, apparently unaware of his misconduct. The Office of the Independent Regulator (OIR) nor the education regulator will make comment as to whether mandatory reports were made. The Principal of the un-named private school is ostensibly in breach of the legislation and subject to a fine. LOUDfence is not optimistic that the OIR will fine the Principal, and as such the identity of the school will remain hidden.

Thought starters

1. Do Governments nationwide remain ‘allergic’ to accountability when it comes to child safety and wellbeing?
2. Will the new Tasmanian Parliament have an appetite for enforcement of child safe legislation?
3. How is Tasmania participating in National Cabinet with the latest moves to make child safety a nationwide priority?
4. Does Tasmania need to have its own CSA crisis in childcare centres involving thousands of infants before the Tasmanian Parliament will ‘mandate and resource’ the Office of the Independent Regulator to systematically audit and enforce compliance in known high-risk settings such as Childcare Centres, schools and sporting clubs!