‘The system is so broken': Privacy restrictions helping alleged child abusers, says safety advocate
The warning comes after it emerged alleged paedophile Joshua Dale Brown was able to keep his working with children check despite two internal investigations that substantiated his having 'forcibly' grabbed children.
The 26-year-old former childcare worker is facing 70 charges including child sex abuse that allegedly occurred where he worked.
Child safety advocate Hetty Johnston said she knew of three individuals in Queensland who made complaints about a worker in youth care and received compensation through a redress scheme.
'He still maintained a Blue Card [Queensland's working with children check] ... and it was because information wasn't shared with relevant authorities,' she said. 'That's because of government restrictions around privacy.'
Johnston, is the founder of Safeguarding People Australia and previously founded Bravehearts, a charity dedicated to preventing childhood sexual abuse.
She said the alleged Queensland victims did not go to police, which is not uncommon for survivors of abuse, but each of their complaints was found credible.
Johnston said that under the Northern Territory's scheme, complaints made to police were included in the considerations undertaken for working with children checks, whereas in other jurisdictions such as Victoria and NSW only recorded convictions were taken into account.

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News.com.au
6 hours ago
- News.com.au
AG vows ‘action' on national working with children's check system after shock allegations of abuse
The Federal Government's top lawyer is vowing 'action' on a national Working With Children check system following allegations of sexual abuse at a Melbourne childcare centre. Earlier this month, Victoria Police revealed it charged Joshua Dale Brown, 26, with more than 70 offences, including child rape and possession of child abuse material. He was a worker at Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook and had a working with children check. The alleged abuse has stoked outrage, prompting Attorney-General Michelle Rowland to respond by saying a national system was the 'first item on the agenda' when she meets with state and territory counterparts. 'This is something we are actively doing now,' she told Sky News on Sunday. 'I've been in direct contact with my counterparts … engaging with them about the need to have reform in this area.' Ms Rowland said many would be 'shocked' to learn this was actually a recommendation coming out of a 2015 series of responses on the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. 'We're now in 2025. What is important here is that we have action,' Mr Rowland said. 'The federal government has not been idle. 'We have been undertaking work to ensure that we do have some mechanisms that are in place.' Currently, Working With Children checks take place at a state and territory level. States and territories do not need to talk to each other about their processes or violations and there is no federal oversight. Ms Rowland said was working 'to ensure that we have a solution that allows near real time reporting, access to data, making sure that we've got consistency and uniformity'. Meanwhile, Education Minister Jason Clare has pledged to introduce legislation that would let Canberra cut federal funds to childcare centres that 'aren't up to scratch' on children's safety. He has said funding was one big lever the federal government could pull. Parliament will resume next week for the first time since the federal election.

ABC News
9 hours ago
- ABC News
Queensland premier commits to state becoming 'nation leader' in child safety
The latest disturbing allegations involving workers at Queensland childcare centres have authorities rushing to reassure parents of their commitment to keeping children safe. On Thursday, a 21-year-old man was charged with the indecent treatment of a four-year-old at a Brisbane childcare centre. In a separate matter on Thursday, a convicted child sex offender faced court for failing to tell authorities he was doing maintenance and gardening work at a south-east Queensland childcare centre where his wife was a director. They are the latest in a string of allegations involving childcare facilities across Australia's eastern states. In Victoria last month, authorities recommended thousands of children have precautionary testing for sexually transmitted diseases following dozens of allegations made against Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown. Last year in Queensland, one of Australia's worst paedophiles, Ashley Paul Griffith, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to more than 300 charges. A commission of inquiry into the child safety system in Queensland will begin next week. Commissioner Paul Anastassiou KC is tasked with analysing the system and recommending practical reforms. Not due to report back till November 2026, the state government has assured it will implement interim measures in that time to improve the sector. The state and federal governments are in lock step regarding the need to take urgent action. One of the first pieces of legislation to be introduced to parliament next week by the re-elected Albanese government will be to cut funding to childcare centres that flout regulations. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare told the ABC's Afternoon Briefing this week that the proposed laws would give the government the power to issue a condition to a centre that does not meet the standards that may lead to the centre's funding being suspended or cancelled. "And there's nothing more important in running a childcare centre than the taxpayer funding that runs it — it's about 70 per cent of the funding that runs a childcare centre — it can't run without it," Mr Clare said. Mr Clare will meet with his state counterparts in Canberra next month. Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said on Thursday he would be pushing for a national register of childcare workers. Mr Clare has indicated his support for "a database" that details a person's work history. "The company responsible here should know this at the click of a button. But so should we," he said. "This shouldn't be the sort of information that comes out in drip-feed form, it should be information that's easy to access quickly." In response to the allegations made against the 21-year-old Brisbane childcare worker, the state government noted it was fast-tracking a new reportable conduct scheme. Rolling out from July next year, it will require organisations to report and investigate concerns of harm to children. A recommendation of the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, it aims to improve how centres handle complaints and allegations of harm. A review into Queensland's working with children check, the Blue Card system, is also ongoing. A pre-election commitment from the LNP, it uses Ashley Paul Griffith's offending as a case study to identify and improve systemic failings. Premier David Crisafulli said he was determined for Queensland to be a "national leader" in child safety. "The issue in childcare centres won't be solved overnight," he said on Thursday. "It's confronting, what is occurring. "We are not going to have a situation where monsters can lurk in centres where our most vulnerable and most precious asset, our children, go every day."

Sydney Morning Herald
11 hours ago
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Women are planning a revolution. It will benefit everyone
There is a revolution underway. You could call it 'fifth-wave feminism'. It began before the child sexual abuse scandal which continues to rock centre-based childcare. But as a result of the emotional wave of disgust and horror that each new revelation has brought, the dam has broken sooner than it might have. Women want to take back their lives. To stop co-operating with a society that treats us like eunuchs, valuing only half of what we do. The exciting thing about this revolution is that it is not just about self-actualisation, but social actualisation. It's about making room for men to be fathers as much as for women to be mothers. It challenges the archaic workplace which assumes people stop being parents as soon as they cross the office threshold. The revolution demands that productivity be valued over presenteeism. That hours spent dawdling around an office no longer count the same as hours spent delivering quality work. That we finally measure outcomes instead of inputs. It insists that we respect the work that parents do. Because, as any parent knows, raising a child is an unparalleled joy, but also a slog. Providing a stable home environment is hard work and something to boast about. The revolution was under way before the allegations against Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown came to light. At the beginning of this year, I was sent a manuscript by Virginia Tapscott, a mother of four and freelance writer. She and Tara Shelton have created an advocacy platform called Motherism, which describes itself as 'the unfinished business of feminism – for mothers'. Motherism is running a Kickstarter to fund the publication of the Tapscott's book, All Mothers Work. The book is both profound and energising. It will be the manifesto of this revolution. Tapscott articulates so many important ideas in the book that I've rendered it fluorescent by highlighting passages. The reason the revolution has been so long in coming, she writes, is that previous waves of feminism only valued women as man-like creatures, rendering them invisible as soon as they became mothers. Society presses us to muddle through those early years stretched to our limits, sleepless, instincts at odds with social expectations, pretending that it's all fine. That model has gone unchallenged by decades of women because, she says, each generation of women's children 'grew out of their dependency and it became a problem for the next woman'.