Victorian government to change state's Working with Children Check system

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Victorian government will change its Working with Children Check (WWCC) laws, with the first step taking place in August. It follows the charging of a Victorian childcare worker with more than 70 offences, including sexual assault, relating to alleged victims at a centre in Melbourne's south-west.

Transcript

00:00To receive a working with children check you have to do zero training.

00:05You just need to go through a police screening.

00:07Whereas to serve alcohol to adults you have to do a day of training, pass a test.

00:11Advocates want everyone granted a check to undergo significant training

00:15to identify signs of abuse in kids and the behaviour of perpetrators.

00:20We know that most perpetrators of child sexual abuse don't have any past convictions

00:25and they go under the radar.

00:27We should always be looking at ways to strengthen that framework.

00:32Child care is regulated under a national framework.

00:34Major holes have already been identified after pedophile Ashley Griffith

00:38was able to commit abuse across different states.

00:41The states and federal government recently agreed to ban phones in centres

00:45and introduce mandatory abuse reporting within 24 hours.

00:49I will bring legislation to the federal parliament in the next few months

00:53to cut off funding to childcare centres that aren't up to scratch.

00:58I want to urge the Prime Minister Albanese to stand with us

01:01and to join our calls for a Royal Commission to keep our children safe.

01:05Ten years ago a Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse

01:08recommended a standardised working with children check with a national database.

01:12It still hasn't happened.

01:14No more time to look, to consider, to review.

01:18It's simply get on with the task and complete the job that should have been done much earlier.

01:24Three years ago Victoria's Ombudsman found the states working with children checks

01:28were among the weakest in the country.

01:30The first changes will finally come next month.

01:33We have to make sure as the days progress that we do all that we can

01:36to ensure that this never happens again.

01:39There's hope this renewed focus will prompt fast moving and meaningful reform.

01:43But advocates warn that governments act slowly when it comes to child abuse

01:47because it's a difficult topic to talk about.

01:50They're demanding leadership.

01:52We cannot accept that any further.

01:53That is a national health and safety crisis.

01:56You're not happy to say that.

01:57You'll have to be able to prepare.

01:58You're just not happy to be able to ensure that all of you have missed a few years

01:59of your life.

02:00How can you feel that?

02:01You are just happy to take your own mountain in.

02:02You're all happy to hear.

02:03You're not happy to see that.

02:04You're a happy man.

02:05But there's something that we know.

02:06It's a popular model for you.

02:07You're a happy man.

02:08You're a happy man.

02:09I'm happy to be able to admire your dreams as well as your own house.

02:10You're a happy man.

02:11I'm happy and I'm happy to move on to that big man.

02:12Not only by you.

02:14You're a happy man.

02:16You're an awful man.

02:17You're an awful man.

02:18You're not happy to give me.

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