Sweeping changes needed to ensure child safety: Royal Commission

By Rachel Browne
Sydney Morning Herald
August 17, 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sweeping-changes-needed-to-ensure-child-safety-royal-commission-20150817-gj0lqo.html

The failure of state and territory governments to introduce a nationally consistent system to reduce the risk of paedophiles working with children has been described as "inexcusable" by a royal commission that has recommended sweeping changes to background checks.

State and territory governments will have one year to implement recommendations made on Monday by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The recommendations include a call for a national system which would prevent child sex abusers applying for clearance to work with children in different jurisdictions and improve cross-border information sharing.

A national Working With Children Check scheme would help organisations and people working across borders by reducing complexity and duplication.

"Each state and territory has its own scheme, and each of the eight schemes operates independently of the others," the royal commission's Working With Children Checks Report found.

"They are inconsistent and complex, and there is unnecessary duplication across the schemes. There is no integration of the schemes, and there is inadequate information sharing and monitoring of Working With Children Checks (WWCC) cardholders. 

"These problems are not new and have been recognised by governments for some time. We believe that the absence of any action to fix these problems is a significant and inexcusable failure on the part of governments – these problems cannot continue to be ignored."

The royal commission has also recommended a requirement that all religious leaders and officers or personnel of religious organisations obtain a Working With Children Check.

Under its recommendations, people convicted of certain serious offences against children will be denied the right to appeal adverse WWCC decisions and conditional clearances will not be granted.

It has also proposed a more rigorous assessment of the criminal history of each applicant, to include drug offences, violent offences and sex crimes, regardless of whether the victim was a child. 

The royal commission has also warned organisations not to become complacent about WWCCs.

"An over-reliance on WWCCs can be detrimental to children's safety," the report found. 

"They can provide a false sense of comfort to parents and communities, and may cause organisations to become complacent due to the belief that people who have undergone WWCCs do not pose any risks to children – this is not the case." 

The assistant principal of a Sydney school was charged in May for allegedly trying to incite a child to commit an indecent act, despite holding a WWCC. 

In its public hearings, the royal commission found that the YMCA failed to undertake clearance checks before hiring Jonathan Lord, later convicted of sexually abusing children.

It also heard evidence that former Hunter Aboriginal Children's Services chief executive Steven Larkins manipulated the clearance system by claiming he had no direct contact with children.

The NSW government has already signalled legislation to overhaul checks.

NSW introduced tougher clearances in 2013, with 720,000 WWCC applications approved so far and 600 applicants barred from working with children.

NSW Children's Guardian Kerryn Boland said the state's WWCC already featured many of the royal commission's recommendations but national consistency was needed.