Page 2082 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2016
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There are currently more than 7,500 teachers approved to work in ACT schools and there are over 24,000 children who attend a child care or an early childhood education and care service under the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010. All combined, that is a total of over 95,000 children and young people aged from birth to 18 years old who are part of our education system here in the ACT.
On any standard weekday, many of these 95,000 children and young people will be in the care of one or more of a range of these organisations that I have just referred to. A child may be dropped off at a private early education and care provider in the morning, attend a government preschool during the day and then spend time with an after-school care family day care provider, for example.
These providers would have a regulatory framework that encompasses at least four regulatory frameworks and up to six government agencies if care and protection services and ACT Policing should become involved. In a school and education and care context, each regulatory agency has its specialised role but there is a common obligation that lies with each agency. That is the protection of children and young people.
The challenge for agencies is to be in a position to join up information and evidence in a timely way to protect children and to take action against those who harm children. This bill will go a long way to help meet that challenge. As the Minister for Education, who also has portfolio responsibility for some of these regulatory frameworks, I welcome any increased information sharing and safeguards to help keep our children safer.
The first goal of this bill is to centralise a record of incidents or allegations of harm from the wide field of entities and people who have responsibility for any form of care for children. I draw members’ attention to clause 9, new section 17D of the Ombudsman Act 1989, which sets out the list of designated entities covered by the bill, as I have described.
For my portfolio, the effect of new section 17D of the Ombudsman Act 1989 will be that if reportable conduct is carried out by any teacher, educator, carer, staff member or other employee, then the governing entity has a legal obligation to report the conduct. It does not matter if the organisation is a government or non-government organisation, a community organisation or a commercial organisation. The conduct of any and every employee of an entity described in new section 17D is relevant.
The second goal of the bill is to ensure that any necessary protective action, inquiries or investigations are of a standard that gets to the truth of an allegation and enables action to be taken to protect children and young people. Critical to that goal and the effectiveness of the bill are the information sharing provisions. Cooperation between investigating and protection entities is critical to get the whole picture of an allegation or incident.
Sharing information and evidence is critical to demonstrate the whole picture of what may or may not have happened. The Australian Law Reform Commission also noted
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