WORKING WITH CHILDREN
CHECKS — AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT
1279. Hon PETER COLLIER to the Leader of the House
representing the Minister for Child Protection:
I refer to question without notice
1235 asked on Thursday, 24 October 2019.
(1) Of the 53
people who were found to be unsuitable to work with children, have any of the
53 either been charged with or found guilty of sex offences?
(2) If yes, how
many of the 53 have been either charged with or found guilty of sex offences?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) Yes.
(2) Seven have
either been charged or found guilty. To apply for a working with children
check, a person must be in, or proposed to be in, child-related work. In most
cases, a person can start child-related work while their application is being
processed. However, a person is unable to work if they have committed a class 1
offence when they were an adult or have been issued with an interim negative
notice. The Department of Communities receives 130 000 working with children
check applications each year. The working with children check process does not
include inquiring into how much child-related work the applicant has been
engaged in to date.
The safety of children is of
paramount consideration. Applications are prioritised according to risk.
Interim negative notices are issued when the presenting information indicates
there is an immediate and unacceptable risk of working prior to a final
decision being reached.