Page 558 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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child safe environments and take responsibility for responding to and preventing child sexual abuse.
In responding to the royal commission’s final report, the ACT government demonstrated our commitment to improving how we respond to child sexual abuse by accepting, or accepting in principle, 290 of the 307 recommendations relevant to the ACT. The remaining 17 recommendations were noted or taken under further consideration. Today I can report that we have made significant, important progress in our ongoing commitment to make our community a safe place for children and young people to live, learn and play.
In December 2018 the territory government, along with other jurisdictions, released our first annual progress report, highlighting the significant work that has been undertaken to make Canberra a safer and more inclusive city for children and young people. As I stated in my mid-term address to this place, we have been working to deliver a more inclusive, progressive and connected Canberra. In doing so, we have been proactive in implementing recommendations from the royal commission since they began being issued in 2015.
We recognise that ongoing work is necessary to support victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and to prevent abuse from occurring. We have undertaken key legislative changes, including progressing amendments to the Education Act and the ACTÂ Teacher Quality Institute Act to improve child safety. This includes strengthening the type of information the government collects in order to support more informed teacher registration decisions.
We have introduced legislation to improve information sharing within our jurisdiction, to ensure that law enforcement, child protection and oversight bodies have access to the information they need, when they need it, to effectively deal with child welfare and safety concerns. We have also made critical changes to criminal justice legislation to improve the way child sexual abuse offenders are sentenced and we have introduced two new grooming offences.
In 2018 we passed the Royal Commission Criminal Justice Legislation Amendment Bill to implement a further eight recommendations from the royal commission, including a new offence of failing to protect against institutional child sexual abuse.
Further civil law reforms already implemented include the removal of the Ellis defence to ensure survivors are able to take civil action against institutions, regardless of their legal structure. We have also implemented a reportable conduct scheme, which has been active since July 2017. This scheme was expanded to include religious institutions providing pastoral care and religious instruction in July 2018.
We have consulted on the implementation of royal commission recommendations regarding the reporting of child sexual abuse, which have implications for the confessional seal. This has included commissioning the Hon Justice Julie Dodds-Streeton to consult with key stakeholders and produce an analysis report which provides advice on how best to implement the relevant recommendations.
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