Police allege child abuse material shown in uni lecture
The incident allegedly happened on February 5 in Melbourne's CBD and was reported to police.
Days later, police executed a search warrant at a home in the bayside suburb of Middle Park.
Multiple electronic devices were seized and a 70-year-old man was interviewed.
A day later, detectives flew to Sydney and searched another home in the city's eastern suburbs where more devices were seized.
The Middle Park man has been charged with one count of possessing child abuse material under Commonwealth law and two counts of the same charge under Victorian law.
Detectives are not looking for anyone else as part of the investigation.
The man will face Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Thursday.
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The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
Convicts getting permits, court cases not examined: Inside the flawed working with children system
In late June, Melbourne woman Jane* was alerted that the man she had accused of sexually assaulting her as a child had been cleared by the Victorian government to work with children. 'He confessed to police to abusing me as a three-year-old and after he was charged, I was told he would never get his working with children check back,' recalls Jane. 'I couldn't understand how this could be possible, especially after the [scandal linked to alleged childcare paedophile Joshua Brown].' Jane says immediate shock was soon replaced with a question. If her accused could be given the green light to work with children, did it indicate the WWCC regime – the state's system of background checking those who work with children to weed out potential predators – was deeply flawed? In September 2022, Jane's alleged perpetrator was found not guilty in the County Court of 11 counts of indecent assault over allegations he had repeatedly abused her in the 1970s and 1980s, while she was a child. The court judgment wasn't a declaration of innocence but rather a finding that prosecutors had not proved the case to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. For Jane's accused to be charged and tried in the first place, the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions had concluded that evidence gathered by sex crimes detectives was strong enough to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. After that, but also before the trial, the evidence against the accused man had also been weighed in a committal hearing by a magistrate, who had reached the same determination as the DPP. Jane says this is because the evidence gathered, including a partial confession, was compelling, even if some of the information uncovered by detectives was not ultimately presented to the jury that delivered the not-guilty verdicts. But if the evidence was enough to convince police, a magistrate and the DPP that her accuser should stand trial, it wasn't sufficient to ban him from working with children. Loading After Jane sought explanations from Victorian authorities in July about how her accused perpetrator had been granted a WWCC, she was told that the prosecution failure may have contributed to the decision to reassess him as 'safe', despite the initial stripping of the man's WWCC when he was first charged. 'It doesn't make sense to me,' says Jane. 'The statistics tell us that so many sex assault prosecutions fail. But this doesn't mean the accused should then be allowed to work with children.' Jane is not the only one worried. Experts, advocates and, previously, the public sector watchdog, have all criticised Victoria's WWCC system, which involves the government screening those who work with children for their criminal and regulatory histories. Concern has grown after the arrest of Joshua Brown threw gaps in the state's system of protecting children into the spotlight. Victoria launched a review of the childcare system following Brown's arrest. The state government agrees the WWCC scheme needs to be toughened and is promising reform. The scheme requires those working with children to submit an application that details their criminal and working history to the state government, which in turn cross-references these self-disclosures with police and, under reforms introduced this year, a range of other bodies. Denial of a WWCC means the applicant can't work with young people, but they can launch a judicial appeal of their ban. Critics claim the WWCC regime is too weak because the legal framework underpinning it prevents authorities from canvassing and acting on all the information that may exist about an applicant. For instance, a confession from an accused to police that is not presented as evidence in a trial, as in the case of Jane, can't be accessed by WWCC authorities. Advocates and officials say bans are also too easily overturned on appeal. Loading An analysis by The Age of 18 cases before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has revealed a series of remarkably inconsistent outcomes, including convicted child sex offenders and criminals retaining their WWCC on appeal despite moves by the government to have them barred. This appeal process mirrors NSW's, which Premier Chris Minns promised to overhaul this month, describing it as a 'loophole' which 'makes a mockery of the working with children check'. Appeals upheld by the Victorian tribunal include convicted criminals: a naturopath who was found to have repeatedly threatened his ex-partner and allegedly punched his 14-year-old step-daughter in the face (although that allegation did not lead to a charge); a man accused of raping his 14-year-old stepsister but who was later convicted on a lesser charge of committing an indecent act with a child under 16; and a man jailed for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl and later convicted of recklessly injuring his seven-year-old son. In each case, the tribunal was satisfied that despite the convictions, the appellants posed no risk to children. The state government is yet to detail how it will reform the scheme or indicate if information such as police intelligence might be added to the vetting system so a person who has never been charged, or who has beaten charges, can still be banned in certain circumstances. Among the VCAT cases reviewed by this masthead was that of a teacher acquitted of grooming a 12-year-old boy. The teacher was separately accused of inappropriately touching three children in his classroom three years earlier. Although he was found not guilty over the 12-year-old boy in a 2017 trial, the government revoked his working with children check in 2022, citing the earlier allegations against him. The government fought for the ban to be upheld, arguing the teacher posed an unjustifiable risk to children. It urged the tribunal to believe allegations made by a former student in a recorded interview. The ex-student said that in 2011 the teacher would often call him over to his desk during class and touch the young boy's genitals with his hand. Police investigated the allegation at the time, but no charges were laid as the parents did not want to put their son through the court process. The tribunal sided with evidence from the teacher. The 37-year-old man now lives in Tasmania, where he has applied to return to teaching. One government source with detailed knowledge of him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the VCAT decision as deeply concerning. In 2018, a man convicted of indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl and who also raped his ex-partner while his victim's child was nearby, was granted clearance after appealing the decision. In granting the appeal, the tribunal considered his remorse, low IQ and low chance of re-offending. In another case two years earlier, a student exercise physiologist convicted of drug charges had his appeal rejected. The tribunal found the man had turned his life around, was a model prisoner and was caring towards children. However, the appeal was rejected on the chance he relapsed. The person who advised Jane that her alleged abuser had been cleared to work with children is Fiona Boyle, who runs one of the nation's leading child safety and worker screening organisations, Kooyoora. Boyle discovered the man had been cleared to work with children as part of Kooyoora's weekly review of the WWCC registry. It is a cumbersome routine but Kooyoora performs the review partly because of gaps in Victoria's system, including one which Boyle says enables a 'motivated' offender to potentially keep working with children even if they have their WWCC suspended. This loophole arises because a WWCC holder can update their system details so it appears they are no longer working with a certain employer – who would ordinarily be notified if their WWCC is suspended or withdrawn - even though they are still engaged as an employee or volunteer. Boyle is also gravely concerned that people posing a danger to children can too easily appeal a WWCC removal before the state's administrative tribunal and win. 'People who challenge their WWCC stripping always seem to get it [the WWCC approval] back,' says Boyle. 'The system has big gaps and there is heaps of room for improvement,' she says, noting that inconsistent WWCC regimes around the country also pose challenges for those trying to keep children safe. Boyle also believes WWCC applicants should undergo a character reference check and there should be a major funding boost to educate parents, employers and organisations about how they too can better spot risks. Phillip Doorgachurn, director of safeguarding at the Australian Childhood Foundation, agrees the system is in desperate need of repair. 'We should be having a central agency which manages all child safety issues rather than several … What that means is that you have really skilled professionals rather than people who maybe have no experience of child safeguarding.' Doorgachurn is also worried that the existing system permits credible complaints by suspected child victims to go ignored by those reviewing WWCC applications. 'Those children aren't believed or not listened to,' he says. But senior barrister and leading human right advocate Greg Barns, SC, who is the criminal justice spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, urges caution when it comes to reform, saying a review of the WWCC is needed but warning that any changes must not trample on a fundamental human right: the right to work. Loading Barns has been involved in cases in which he says relatively minor or historical offending, or cases involving ultimately unproven charges that should never have been prosecuted, have been overzealously used to ban a person from working. Reform of the system, he says, must 'balance the right to work with the … need to keep children safe'. Victorian Greens spokesperson for early childhood Anasina Gray-Barberio says the danger lies in not doing enough and that the WWCC system is 'completely broken'. 'Without proper scrutiny, the system has failed to detect and close dangerous loopholes, and predators have been able to exploit it with ease,' she says. Victoria's working with children check system was slammed by the state's ombudsman in 2022 as being among the weakest in the nation. The then ombudsman, Deborah Glass, urged the government to immediately reform the state's laws. The damning report found the unit tasked with screening workers was unable to consider highly concerning police and child protection intelligence. 'We get information that's quite concerning sometimes, but we can't do anything with it. There has to be a trigger,' a director in the unit told the public sector watchdog. Despite the ombudsman's 2022 warnings, no action to reform the WWCC regime was taken until April this year. The changes increase the information sources available to deny a WWCC (now assessors can examine the findings of various sector regulators and VCAT tribunal members) but still deny access to potentially credible sources of information about a person's history such as police statements or court evidence. The confession to police from Jane's alleged perpetrator, for example, could remain out of reach for the WWCC unit under the new laws because the case led to no conviction. Jane also told this masthead the WWCC unit staff she spoke to were dismissive and indifferent to her concerns. Premier Jacinta Allan has promised to adopt every recommendation made as a result of the ongoing reviews triggered by the Joshua Brown case. But any crackdown on WWCC laws may have little to no impact on how VCAT reviews appeals because the tribunal is governed by its own set of laws. Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny did not respond when asked if the government would consider introducing similar legislation introduced by the NSW government last week, which made its independent child safety regulator the sole reviewer and decision maker on WWCC applications. The NSW government said the new powers would '[ensure] that child safety remains in the hands of the specialist regulator best equipped to assess risk.' Professor Ben Mathews, a leading expert on child abuse prevention, was instrumental in overhauling time limitation laws for child abuse survivors. The professor said the working with children checks were a 'very blunt tool' and governments should consider a tiered system in which those without convictions but still considered a risk are granted conditional work rights that require additional oversight and regulation. 'Working with children checks are a very, very blunt tool for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that the vast majority of people who have sexually offended against kids have never even been charged, let alone convicted, let alone imprisoned. 'It's one tool in a suite of tools – and it's arguably the least effective and the least important tool. I'm not saying it shouldn't be there, but to the extent that it's there, it should be there in a strengthened form.' He is adamant on one point: 'If someone does have a criminal conviction for a child abuse-related offence, they should never be able to work with kids again.'
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
The woman with $2m cash in her boot and the violent trade as ‘lucrative as drugs'
Much of the illicit loose tobacco in Australia is home-grown, while most illegal cigarettes come from China. Those cigarettes are either counterfeits of cigarettes sold here or brands not available in Australia. Because they are smuggled in through Australia's porous border, importers do not pay the tobacco excise – currently $1.40 per cigarette – and lack the barcode, plain packaging and health messaging on their legal counterparts. Loading They are also significantly cheaper, sold through the convenience stores that have become ubiquitous in Sydney. Estimates have the cost price of a packet of illegal smokes as low as $2, providing both a significant profit for the importers and a cheaper product for the consumer. 'Organised crime are filling some of that void. They're able to provide cigarettes between $10 and $25 a packet rather than between $40 and $65 a packet,' Bennett said. NSW Premier Chris Minns in June came out swinging at the Commonwealth tobacco excise – which is indexed and also being increased by 5 per cent each year for a three-year period starting in 2023 – saying it should be reconsidered. On Wednesday, the state government introduced what it describes as 'tough new laws' to parliament. The sweeping new legislation is designed to penalise selling illegal tobacco, and would allow evictions of retailers selling illegal tobacco, business shutdowns and fines of up to $1.5 million. 'As lucrative as illegal drugs' Sydney's criminal milieu has long been keen to meet the city's ravenous appetite for illicit drugs; anecdotal evidence suggests that major players such as the Alameddine crime family can earn up to $1 million a week in profit. Despite these eye-watering profits, criminal groups are increasingly looking to illegal tobacco, says Bennett. A briefing to Police Minister Yasmin Catley, seen by this masthead, suggests players 'responsible for violence in Victoria' have moved into NSW and aligned themselves with 'known actors'. Asian and Middle Eastern organised crime groups have also become involved in the illicit tobacco trade, the briefing says. There are two reasons for this – illegal tobacco has a much larger potential market than illicit drugs, and the penalties for importing or selling illicit smokes are considerably lighter than for drugs. 'Large organised crime groups that have traditionally been involved in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and ransom, they've all got an offshoot in illegal tobacco,' Bennett said. 'From what I can see, it's easily as lucrative as illegal drugs. 'We're certainly seeing that sort of traditional organised crime tactics around eliminating competition and establishing an area where you can do business.' Loading Arson attacks, which have authorities particularly concerned because of the proximity of many tobacconists to residential dwellings, have been used in NSW, says the briefing to the police minister. Legitimate retailers have also been targeted by organised crime, who are forced to sell illicit products on behalf of the crime group then are extorted for protection money. In a matter before the courts, a man allegedly planned to steal almost $1 million in cash from the home of a NSW tobacconist in November last year. Documents seen by the Herald allege the man used a device to track multiple cars and was heard on a phone tap discussing kidnapping people, dressing up as a police officer to orchestrate a vehicle stop or breaking into storage sheds. Police tracking the man and his co-accused stymied the alleged plot before the money – which police say is profits from illegal tobacco – could be stolen. He cannot be identified for legal reasons. In a separate case, an alleged tobacco runner had his big toe partially severed; in another instance last year, a tobacconist business was burnt to the ground. Bennett said it could be difficult to discern if this extreme violence was born of illegal drugs or tobacco, but 'more frequently we're finding from our intelligence base and from talking to the police, and talking to victims and talking to offenders, that the motivation is illegal tobacco'. The business of illicit tobacco has ensnared a huge number of seemingly everyday people – such as the Sydney woman with $2 million in the boot, now before the courts on two counts of dealing with the proceeds of crime – whose alleged role is to move huge volumes of cash, cigarettes and tobacco up and down the eastern seaboard. Loading In January, a truck driver was caught in one of the north shore's most moneyed suburbs, allegedly with $1 million in the back of his truck. The money was seized by the Crime Commission and he remains before the courts on proceeds of crime offences. That man, too, cannot be identified. Bennett said the NSW Police have been 'very active, very busy' both in vehicle stops of the type that allegedly both foiled the truck driver and the Sydney woman, and in their ongoing fight against organised crime. 'On a local [police station] level is where you get that short-term information based around storage sheds or vehicle movements,' which have led to 'quite a few' seizures north of $1 million, Bennett said. Police are heavily involved in stopping illegal tobacco, but debate has raged over exactly who should regulate it. While NSW Health is the lead agency, it is ill equipped to take on the underworld. Minns has said he doesn't want police taken away from the fight against domestic violence and organised crime. Commercial implications Then there is the question of the place of illegal tobacconists in the commercial landscape. On Penrith's main street, there are four within a 50-metre radius. Dozens more feature along the suburb's main strip. On the other side of the city, tourists alighting from the famous Manly ferry pass three as they walk the 450 metres down the Corso to the beach. 'There's a massive capital investment going into illegal tobacco sales,' Bennett said, something that has alarmed many communities. Independent MP for Pittwater Jacqui Scruby has been agitating for more action on illegal tobacconists, and says there is 'real fear' in the community because of tobacconists' links to organised crime. She says legitimate businesses are being pushed out, neighbouring business owners have seen an increase in insurance premiums because of the risk of firebombs, and people living near or above those shops are concerned about being caught in the crossfire. Scruby has made a number of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry, including buffer zones to prohibit businesses around schools and playgrounds, tougher penalties and moving the responsibility for enforcement to a 'better resourced' interagency taskforce. But with illegal tobacco being sold in plain sight, issues with regulation and the sheer volume of illicit smokes for sale, the problem for government remains diabolical. 'Everyone's got a stake in stopping this and that's got to start with people not buying it,' Bennett says firmly. 'But whether Joe Average is willing to pay double or triple what they can pay to mitigate the organised crime aspect of it remains to be seen.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Convicts getting permits, court cases not examined: Inside the flawed working with children system
In late June, Melbourne woman Jane* was alerted that the man she had accused of sexually assaulting her as a child had been cleared by the Victorian government to work with children. 'He confessed to police to abusing me as a three-year-old and after he was charged, I was told he would never get his working with children check back,' recalls Jane. 'I couldn't understand how this could be possible, especially after the [scandal linked to alleged childcare paedophile Joshua Brown].' Jane says immediate shock was soon replaced with a question. If her accused could be given the green light to work with children, did it indicate the WWCC regime – the state's system of background checking those who work with children to weed out potential predators – was deeply flawed? In September 2022, Jane's alleged perpetrator was found not guilty in the County Court of 11 counts of indecent assault over allegations he had repeatedly abused her in the 1970s and 1980s, while she was a child. The court judgment wasn't a declaration of innocence but rather a finding that prosecutors had not proved the case to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. For Jane's accused to be charged and tried in the first place, the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions had concluded that evidence gathered by sex crimes detectives was strong enough to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. After that, but also before the trial, the evidence against the accused man had also been weighed in a committal hearing by a magistrate, who had reached the same determination as the DPP. Jane says this is because the evidence gathered, including a partial confession, was compelling, even if some of the information uncovered by detectives was not ultimately presented to the jury that delivered the not-guilty verdicts. But if the evidence was enough to convince police, a magistrate and the DPP that her accuser should stand trial, it wasn't sufficient to ban him from working with children. Loading After Jane sought explanations from Victorian authorities in July about how her accused perpetrator had been granted a WWCC, she was told that the prosecution failure may have contributed to the decision to reassess him as 'safe', despite the initial stripping of the man's WWCC when he was first charged. 'It doesn't make sense to me,' says Jane. 'The statistics tell us that so many sex assault prosecutions fail. But this doesn't mean the accused should then be allowed to work with children.' Jane is not the only one worried. Experts, advocates and, previously, the public sector watchdog, have all criticised Victoria's WWCC system, which involves the government screening those who work with children for their criminal and regulatory histories. Concern has grown after the arrest of Joshua Brown threw gaps in the state's system of protecting children into the spotlight. Victoria launched a review of the childcare system following Brown's arrest. The state government agrees the WWCC scheme needs to be toughened and is promising reform. The scheme requires those working with children to submit an application that details their criminal and working history to the state government, which in turn cross-references these self-disclosures with police and, under reforms introduced this year, a range of other bodies. Denial of a WWCC means the applicant can't work with young people, but they can launch a judicial appeal of their ban. Critics claim the WWCC regime is too weak because the legal framework underpinning it prevents authorities from canvassing and acting on all the information that may exist about an applicant. For instance, a confession from an accused to police that is not presented as evidence in a trial, as in the case of Jane, can't be accessed by WWCC authorities. Advocates and officials say bans are also too easily overturned on appeal. Loading An analysis by The Age of 18 cases before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has revealed a series of remarkably inconsistent outcomes, including convicted child sex offenders and criminals retaining their WWCC on appeal despite moves by the government to have them barred. This appeal process mirrors NSW's, which Premier Chris Minns promised to overhaul this month, describing it as a 'loophole' which 'makes a mockery of the working with children check'. Appeals upheld by the Victorian tribunal include convicted criminals: a naturopath who was found to have repeatedly threatened his ex-partner and allegedly punched his 14-year-old step-daughter in the face (although that allegation did not lead to a charge); a man accused of raping his 14-year-old stepsister but who was later convicted on a lesser charge of committing an indecent act with a child under 16; and a man jailed for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl and later convicted of recklessly injuring his seven-year-old son. In each case, the tribunal was satisfied that despite the convictions, the appellants posed no risk to children. The state government is yet to detail how it will reform the scheme or indicate if information such as police intelligence might be added to the vetting system so a person who has never been charged, or who has beaten charges, can still be banned in certain circumstances. Among the VCAT cases reviewed by this masthead was that of a teacher acquitted of grooming a 12-year-old boy. The teacher was separately accused of inappropriately touching three children in his classroom three years earlier. Although he was found not guilty over the 12-year-old boy in a 2017 trial, the government revoked his working with children check in 2022, citing the earlier allegations against him. The government fought for the ban to be upheld, arguing the teacher posed an unjustifiable risk to children. It urged the tribunal to believe allegations made by a former student in a recorded interview. The ex-student said that in 2011 the teacher would often call him over to his desk during class and touch the young boy's genitals with his hand. Police investigated the allegation at the time, but no charges were laid as the parents did not want to put their son through the court process. The tribunal sided with evidence from the teacher. The 37-year-old man now lives in Tasmania, where he has applied to return to teaching. One government source with detailed knowledge of him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the VCAT decision as deeply concerning. In 2018, a man convicted of indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl and who also raped his ex-partner while his victim's child was nearby, was granted clearance after appealing the decision. In granting the appeal, the tribunal considered his remorse, low IQ and low chance of re-offending. In another case two years earlier, a student exercise physiologist convicted of drug charges had his appeal rejected. The tribunal found the man had turned his life around, was a model prisoner and was caring towards children. However, the appeal was rejected on the chance he relapsed. The person who advised Jane that her alleged abuser had been cleared to work with children is Fiona Boyle, who runs one of the nation's leading child safety and worker screening organisations, Kooyoora. Boyle discovered the man had been cleared to work with children as part of Kooyoora's weekly review of the WWCC registry. It is a cumbersome routine but Kooyoora performs the review partly because of gaps in Victoria's system, including one which Boyle says enables a 'motivated' offender to potentially keep working with children even if they have their WWCC suspended. This loophole arises because a WWCC holder can update their system details so it appears they are no longer working with a certain employer – who would ordinarily be notified if their WWCC is suspended or withdrawn - even though they are still engaged as an employee or volunteer. Boyle is also gravely concerned that people posing a danger to children can too easily appeal a WWCC removal before the state's administrative tribunal and win. 'People who challenge their WWCC stripping always seem to get it [the WWCC approval] back,' says Boyle. 'The system has big gaps and there is heaps of room for improvement,' she says, noting that inconsistent WWCC regimes around the country also pose challenges for those trying to keep children safe. Boyle also believes WWCC applicants should undergo a character reference check and there should be a major funding boost to educate parents, employers and organisations about how they too can better spot risks. Phillip Doorgachurn, director of safeguarding at the Australian Childhood Foundation, agrees the system is in desperate need of repair. 'We should be having a central agency which manages all child safety issues rather than several … What that means is that you have really skilled professionals rather than people who maybe have no experience of child safeguarding.' Doorgachurn is also worried that the existing system permits credible complaints by suspected child victims to go ignored by those reviewing WWCC applications. 'Those children aren't believed or not listened to,' he says. But senior barrister and leading human right advocate Greg Barns, SC, who is the criminal justice spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, urges caution when it comes to reform, saying a review of the WWCC is needed but warning that any changes must not trample on a fundamental human right: the right to work. Loading Barns has been involved in cases in which he says relatively minor or historical offending, or cases involving ultimately unproven charges that should never have been prosecuted, have been overzealously used to ban a person from working. Reform of the system, he says, must 'balance the right to work with the … need to keep children safe'. Victorian Greens spokesperson for early childhood Anasina Gray-Barberio says the danger lies in not doing enough and that the WWCC system is 'completely broken'. 'Without proper scrutiny, the system has failed to detect and close dangerous loopholes, and predators have been able to exploit it with ease,' she says. Victoria's working with children check system was slammed by the state's ombudsman in 2022 as being among the weakest in the nation. The then ombudsman, Deborah Glass, urged the government to immediately reform the state's laws. The damning report found the unit tasked with screening workers was unable to consider highly concerning police and child protection intelligence. 'We get information that's quite concerning sometimes, but we can't do anything with it. There has to be a trigger,' a director in the unit told the public sector watchdog. Despite the ombudsman's 2022 warnings, no action to reform the WWCC regime was taken until April this year. The changes increase the information sources available to deny a WWCC (now assessors can examine the findings of various sector regulators and VCAT tribunal members) but still deny access to potentially credible sources of information about a person's history such as police statements or court evidence. The confession to police from Jane's alleged perpetrator, for example, could remain out of reach for the WWCC unit under the new laws because the case led to no conviction. Jane also told this masthead the WWCC unit staff she spoke to were dismissive and indifferent to her concerns. Premier Jacinta Allan has promised to adopt every recommendation made as a result of the ongoing reviews triggered by the Joshua Brown case. But any crackdown on WWCC laws may have little to no impact on how VCAT reviews appeals because the tribunal is governed by its own set of laws. Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny did not respond when asked if the government would consider introducing similar legislation introduced by the NSW government last week, which made its independent child safety regulator the sole reviewer and decision maker on WWCC applications. The NSW government said the new powers would '[ensure] that child safety remains in the hands of the specialist regulator best equipped to assess risk.' Professor Ben Mathews, a leading expert on child abuse prevention, was instrumental in overhauling time limitation laws for child abuse survivors. The professor said the working with children checks were a 'very blunt tool' and governments should consider a tiered system in which those without convictions but still considered a risk are granted conditional work rights that require additional oversight and regulation. 'Working with children checks are a very, very blunt tool for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that the vast majority of people who have sexually offended against kids have never even been charged, let alone convicted, let alone imprisoned. 'It's one tool in a suite of tools – and it's arguably the least effective and the least important tool. I'm not saying it shouldn't be there, but to the extent that it's there, it should be there in a strengthened form.' He is adamant on one point: 'If someone does have a criminal conviction for a child abuse-related offence, they should never be able to work with kids again.'
