Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Bills

Worker Screening Amendment (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Sonya Kilkenny:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (13:29): I rise to make a contribution on the Worker Screening Amendment (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025. I will follow the lead of the opposition lead speaker in limiting my remarks in order to allow opportunity for others to contribute, noting that this bill was introduced pursuant to standing order 61 (3)(b). I also join the manager of government business in thanking the opposition for their support of that process.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the context in which this legislation arrives to us in the chamber. All of us were horrified by the sickening allegations pertaining to an individual who worked across a number of early childhood centres in Melbourne.

I think many of us remember where were when we heard that awful news. We were on our way to Kerang to open a kindergarten, actually, at the Kerang South Primary site, and that should have been a happy occasion for that community and for Sandra George, Brooke Arnold, Paul Fernee and all of the team up there at Gannawarra shire. But of course the dark news, the awful news, from that day did cast a shadow on those events for those who had at that stage heard about that news, and our thoughts very much remain with everyone affected. It certainly sent a shockwave throughout the entire sector, but most particularly our thoughts are with those children and families who were directly affected by the horrendous alleged actions of that individual. We often talk about what a big step it is for parents, who when they take their child to an early childhood centre are often for the very first time placing their child in the trust of someone else outside of their immediate family. We speak about that when we thank those teachers and educators and other staff for the great work that they do, but we acknowledge in this particular case what a horrific betrayal of that trust these allegations represent.

This legislation comes to us in that context and of course in the context of the steps that the government announced at the time, including but not limited to the rapid review undertaken by Jay Weatherill and Pam White, and the government, as the minister and the Premier have made clear, will implement all 22 recommendations from that review in addition to the other steps already taken with respect to devices, the register and so forth. Those recommendations from that review can broadly be divided into those that are more directly for the Victorian government and those that will involve a national advocacy role, and the legislation that is before us today fits into that first category of more direct Victorian recommendations. It stems from chapter 4 relating to the working with children check scheme and the reportable conduct scheme and specifically from recommendations 6.2 and 6.5. I would like to commend the reviewers for the way they have structured that review and draw the attention of the house to the fact that today’s bill also really stems from recommendation 1, which the Premier and the minister have spoken to, and that is that fundamental recommendation to make the safety, rights and best interests of children the paramount consideration for everyone involved in early childhood education and care settings.

I just want to conclude by stressing that it is important that whilst today with this bill we will make changes to the way the secretary and the department administer the working with children scheme, it is also just as important to ensure that those who are in centres and who are responsible on a day-to-day basis for implementing the scheme have the resources and the support that they need. I think the points that the review makes about the nature of some of the operators that we have seen come in to the sector, about some of the very complex business structures that we have seen, are an important context for today’s bill and indeed for the broader work being undertaken by the government. I was pleased to see that following Victoria’s advocacy the Commonwealth, alongside states and territories, has committed to making the safety, rights and best interests of children the paramount consideration under national law.

The member for Malvern in his remarks I think covered off the specific details of the bill before us, particularly the four sections relating to the bans that correspond to bans in other jurisdictions, the obligations on the secretary to suspend a person’s working with children check in the circumstances that the member for Malvern mentioned, the introduction of a power to cancel a working with children clearance when it was granted based on false or misleading information and the increase in time limits for commencing a prosecution for the offence of someone who does that. I will not go through those particulars of the bill again but just conclude by saying that it is an important bill that is part of ongoing work by this government and indeed ongoing work nationally. I thank the Attorney-General for her work on it and I thank Jay Weatherill and Pam White for their contribution, and I commend the bill to the house.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (13:34): I rise too to speak on the Worker Screening Act (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025 before the chamber today. From the outset can I, like the member for Malvern, stress that the Liberals and Nationals – the coalition – will always put the safety of children first. We will always err on side of caution in protecting children in this state, because it is the number one responsibility of any government to ensure the most vulnerable in our community are protected and government takes every action it can to ensure the laws protect children in this state. That is why the coalition will be supporting the bill before us today. From the outset can I thank the member for Malvern for the incredible amount of work he has done over recent weeks to highlight the desperate need to strengthen the broken working with children check system in this state. I will acknowledge the government, who provided the briefing late last night and an advance copy of the bill to the opposition to ensure that we were prepared for the debate today.

In 2022 the Victorian Ombudsman warned the government that the working with children check system was broken here in Victoria. In fact the Ombudsman said that the working with children check system in Victoria was the most limited in the country and set out a number of recommendations that would have immediately strengthened the working with children check system to ensure that children were safe in settings right across the state. Whether that is childcare centres, whether that is schools or whether that is sporting clubs, wherever children are under the supervision and the so-called protection of adults, the working with children check system needs to be protecting children in this state. But, sadly, it is simply not the case here in Victoria, because when the Ombudsman made those recommendations three years ago the government failed to act. They did not even have the decency to respond to the Ombudsman.

At the time the Shadow Attorney-General, on behalf of the Victorian Liberals and Nationals, put out a statement saying that we support the Ombudsman’s recommendations – that we stand ready to implement those recommendations as a priority. That was three years ago. Fast-forward to six weeks ago, when the horrific allegations of child sexual abuse in child care in Victoria came to light, shattering the trust of parents in this state when it comes to having the confidence to drop their kids off at child care and know that the system is going to protect them. At the time the Premier stood up and said they were going to undertake a review. We did not need a review. We knew what needed to be done, because three years ago the Ombudsman laid out a road map as to how to strengthen the working with children check system in this state. Three years ago the recommendations were there in black and white for the government to pick up and to implement urgently to ensure that children were safe in this state. But instead of picking up those recommendations, three years too late, the government under the Premier’s leadership said, ‘No, we’ll undertake a review; we’ll delay action again.’

But the Liberals and Nationals were not prepared to wait, and four weeks ago in this chamber we brought forward new laws that would have fully implemented the Ombudsman’s recommendations from three years ago, with commonsense, practical changes to ensure that the secretary can obtain and consider any information that may be relevant to an applicant’s suitability to work with children. But not only did the Premier, her ministers and every one of those people sitting opposite vote down that legislation, the bill before us today – a bill that is meant to be designed to keep children safe, to strengthen our working with children check system – still does not pick up the Ombudsman’s recommendations. It fails to implement them. I am in disbelief that the government has brought forward a bill today that does not implement those recommendations – that puts at risk the safety of children.

Let us just go to one shocking example. The member for Lowan is sitting at the table with me.

Ron Marks in Horsham was under investigation for accessing and holding thousands of child sexual abuse images. Police came in, raided his home, found those images and cut up his working with children check card – his physical card. Yet his digital card remained active, and because of that for years after he was able to go and interact with children, engage with children in schools, in kindergartens and in childcare centres. Had the government implemented the Ombudsman’s recommendations at the time in 2022 Ron Marks would have been able to be picked up and his working with children check would have been able to be revoked under the Ombudsman’s recommendations. Yet the bill before us today would still allow Ron Marks to have an active working with children check. That is how hollow the bill is before us today.

How does this happen? What is the government doing? These are simple, commonsense, practical changes that will keep children safe. Why are we even debating this? We brought the legislation that would have enacted these to the Parliament four weeks ago. It is right here. The government does not need advice on how to draft it, because it has been done. Why is it not occurring? Why do we need to debate the safety of children in this state?

The government’s so-called rapid review went to the limitations of the working with children check. It expressly stated that more needs to be done, and it highlighted the 2022 Victorian Ombudsman recommendations as needing to be urgently enacted, stating that the current laws are not fit for purpose and that compared to other states and territories Victoria’s working with children check framework is among the least flexible in the country. Looking at just recommendation 6.1 (a), the government’s rapid review states that the working with children check regulatory framework needs to:

Allow unsubstantiated information or intelligence (for example, from police, child protection or other relevant bodies) to be obtained, shared, and considered in order to assess, refuse, temporarily suspend or revoke a Working with Children Check.

That is the first recommendation under the working with children check section. Does this bill implement it – no. So why did we have to wait for the rapid review? What did the rapid review achieve if we are not implementing these reforms today? What are we waiting for? We know the disastrous, horrific consequences for children if these laws are not changed, because we have seen it happen. There are too many examples of children not being safe in this state. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that predators can still hold an active working with children check because the system has loopholes that are allowing them to do so and the government is not closing them. What is the government doing? Where is the Premier?

The Premier stood up last week and said every single recommendation was going to be implemented from her rapid review, and then we get legislation that fails to do so. The number one job of any leader, the Premier first and foremost, is to keep the most vulnerable safe, to keep children safe. Premier, you stood up and said we need to take time to have a review. Well, the review has occurred, and the recommendations are clear. They were clear three years ago. To be clear, we did not need the review to tell us what needed to happen.

The Liberals and Nationals brought these laws to the floor of Parliament four weeks ago and every single member of the government voted them down, and today we have a piece of legislation that takes a couple of tiny steps forward but not enough to keep children safe. The government needs to support our amendments in the other place to ensure that children are protected in this state and we are doing everything we can to make sure the laws are strong enough to do so.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (13:44): I rise to speak on the Worker Screening Act (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025. We need this bill. We need it because it is going to strengthen the working with children check scheme and increase protections for children by preventing people who may pose a risk to children from engaging in child-related work. I normally say it gives me great pleasure to speak on a bill, but I cannot say that this time in the sense that the content of what initiated this coming to the house today – the allegations – is so upsetting. I was listening to the member for Preston speaking earlier and listening to the member for Kew speaking, and these allegations are beyond horrific. As I said before in this chamber, I am sure all of us had a visceral response when we heard about them. It is good that we are bringing in legislation which works to strengthen the working with children check system. Work had been in progress beforehand as well, and with the rapid review that was undertaken and the 22 recommendations – we will be accepting all of them – all 22 will be implemented and that will be happening as well. From October we will see further legislation coming to the house that will deal with more of the recommendations.

This bill before us will make the following urgent amendments to the Worker Screening Act 2020. It will ensure that a person who is banned from working with children in another jurisdiction will be automatically banned here in the state of Victoria. That is known as a mutual recognition of interstate bans, and I think that is incredibly important. It gives effect to a joint commitment by the Commonwealth and the state and territory governments at the Standing Council of Attorneys-General on 15 August. That is only just coming up to two weeks ago, so it is giving immediate effect to that decision made there. It will also allow for immediate suspension of a person’s working with children check clearance upon being notified of any change or relevant regulatory or disciplinary finding, pending determination of an assessment. At the moment a person can work for 28 days pending the natural justice process, but this will suspend it with immediate effect, and that is really important as well. I think that is an incredibly potent part of the bill. It will also introduce a power to cancel a working with children’s clearance where it was granted based on false or misleading information, and it will increase time limits for commencing a prosecution of the offence of providing false or misleading information in relation to a worker screening application or assessment. Currently it is up to 12 months, but this will expand it to five years and six months, as it well should.

As I was saying, the events which have precipitated much debate and concern amongst us all here, the allegations made, are terrible. I had children in child care myself – in long day care as well as family day care and short day care. Between my two kids, they experienced all forms of day care, including grandparents as well. It has been a long time since my children were in care, but I have to say those allegations were horrendous – absolutely horrendous. I know that there are many, many in here who do have their children in care, and I feel deeply for them as well, because it is all far too close to home.

I am very pleased that we are working on this, and I do know of that rapid review – which, as I say, was only handed down at the end of last week, I believe – every recommendation will be adopted by us as a government and implemented, and I know that there will be further legislation presented in October. At the moment this is the first step, so strengthening the working with children checks is an incredibly important aspect of dealing with care and with people who work with children in this state. We have to get it right, and this is what we are working towards right now.

I just wanted to make a quick comment that implementing the rapid review recommendations will actually go further than the Victorian Ombudsman’s report. The rapid child safety review considered child safeguarding much more broadly than the Ombudsman’s report of three years ago, including the connections between the working with children check scheme, worker registers and the reportable conduct scheme. So there will be a lot more. It will actually go beyond the Ombudsman’s report, and I do look forward to seeing that legislation when it is brought to the house. Being mindful that we have an agreement on shortened times, I will now sit down. I commend this bill to the house.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (13:50): The bill that we are debating now, the Worker Screening Amendment (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025, is a very small step forward to implement what is required to make sure that our children are safe and protected from the people in our community who take egregious and heinous steps towards sexual gratification from our youngest children. I speak to this bill because I am so disappointed that it does not do anything to implement the recommendations of the Victorian Ombudsman’s report made three years ago, and I speak to it with a level of experience because my community of Horsham has had to experience firsthand the flaws of the current working with children check system. It was in September 2021 that Ronald Marks had a large amount of material seized – numerous hard drives, laptops, phones. It was about a thousand images of children in horrific situations: bestiality, children that appeared to be dead and covered with mud – three-year-old children, they appeared to be – being sexually assaulted. That material was seized in September 2021, and at the time, to their credit, Victoria Police also took Mr Marks’s physical working with children check card. Police also made a recommendation to the working with children check unit to have his digital working with children check revoked immediately, as you would expect.

In 2022 the Victorian Ombudsman clearly outlined these exact flaws in the system, and Ronald Marks continued to have a valid working with children check even though he had this horrific information caught on his property in his possession, which he never, ever disagreed with. The Victorian Ombudsman recommended that we do not wait for charges to be laid to have a digital working with children check revoked. Three years later we have had horrific further allegations made against people working within child care who have still got a valid working with children check. We now have a rapid review but not a rapid response from the Allan Labor government. It is shocking for the parents of children at childcare centres, at kindergartens, at primary schools and at secondary schools in the Wimmera who have had to see this situation unfold and know that their children were put at risk, and the legislation that we are debating today does not close that loophole.

It is a massive failure of the Allan Labor government that they continue to put politics above the protection of vulnerable children. It is nothing more than political arrogance to vote down legislation that would have closed that loophole that our local people have been exposed to simply because the wrong side of politics put the ideas forward and put the work into developing the legislation. It is political arrogance which continues to put our most vulnerable children at risk, and I urge the Labor members to support the amendments which have been put forward, which would ensure that it is made into law that when people like Mr Marks have material seized and Victoria Police are making a recommendation to have a digital working with children check revoked, it is revoked that instant and we protect our children.

I acknowledge our local parents, our kids and our educators who are working through this in my local community, because they feel like they have done the wrong thing in not knowing that Mr Marks, who had this material in his possession, had this record and had these charges looming. I also acknowledge our local Indigenous community, who feel shamed and let down by the entire system. I urge the Allan Labor government to support the amendments put forward by the Liberals and the Nationals to put the safety of our children first and certainly make sure that anybody in our community who is known to have material which is abusive of children is never allowed to set foot in a childcare centre, a kindergarten or a primary school or have a valid digital working with children check. That is the least that any government can do.

Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (13:55): A priority of any government must be to keep its people safe, most particularly vulnerable children. Our priority is child safety. And yet Victorian children for years have been let down by this negligent Labor government that has ignored repeated warnings about the broken working with children check system and recommendations to strengthen the system to protect our kids. But Labor has done nothing for many years. For many years they have ignored the warnings, and families and children now suffer the deeply distressing consequences of being impacted by sickening abuse by predators in early childcare and in state care. The working with children check that they should have never obtained or, if they had it, should have been cancelled is now still a situation that this Labor government grapples with and has failed to act swiftly in addressing. Labor has failed our children.

Today the legislation before us, the Worker Screening Act (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025, we will support because it does take a small step forward in strengthening the broken working with children check system – but it does not go far enough. There are still loopholes leaving children at risk. In September 2022, three years ago, the Victorian Ombudsman tabled a report of an investigation into a former youth worker’s unauthorised access to private information about children, and the Victorian Ombudsman found that Victoria’s working with children check system was among the most limited in Australia. The Ombudsman noted the weakness of Victoria’s Worker Screening Act 2020 and urged legislative reform to bring Victoria in line with other Australian states, otherwise our Victorian children would remain at risk. The Labor government not only ignored the recommendations, they did not even respond to them.

At the time of the Victorian Ombudsman’s report, the Victorian Liberals and Nationals released a statement through the Shadow Attorney-General which committed that:

A Liberals and Nationals Government will urgently amend the Worker Screening Act to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations and give Victoria’s children the protection that they deserve.

The recent scandal of alleged child sexual assault in Victorian childcare centres has put the focus on Labor’s failure to act when first warned three years ago. We know that in 2025 in July the Liberals and Nationals sought to introduce the Worker Screening Amendment (Safety of Children) Bill 2025. The Victorian Liberals and Nationals have led the way because, despite Labor failing to do this after the Ombudsman’s recommendations three years ago, four weeks ago the Liberals and Nationals introduced this legislation in order to implement all of the recommendations of the Ombudsman, because we know of the significant concern that our families are facing. We have a situation where our families are suffering unimaginable devastation that their children have been exposed to a predator and have been exposed to, potentially, sexually transmitted disease as a result of the system failures under this Labor government. We introduced that legislation which would have addressed this and we would have been able to do it quickly, but Labor voted that down.

This bill before us is weak. It does not acquit the Ombudsman’s recommendations that were made three years ago, which is why I certainly hope that the government will take the opportunity to accept the Victorian Liberals’ and Nationals’ amendments that we will be putting and proposing in the upper house, because that will go some way to be able to address this broken system. Again, our focus should be putting Victorian children’s safety first. That should absolutely be the priority. But it is dismal that this Labor government again not only ignored the recommendations of the Ombudsman – completely failed to even respond – but failed in their duty of care to Victorian children, and they should be utterly ashamed for doing so. It has been the member for Malvern and the member for Kew who have done exceptional work to –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am required by sessional orders to interrupt business. The time has come for question time.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.