Page 4304 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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people who are notified of the alleged breach who can go to the committee and decide what further action is required. I think going to the committee is a necessary step because I acknowledge that there would be occasions when people should not be prosecuted and some other form of action should occur. But knowledge of the alleged abuse needs to be there to start with.
Accordingly, Mr O'Neill and I decided that this particular amendment is the best way to go. Because the Community Advocate is a government official, the mandatory condition is enough. In the rest of that section there are penalty provisions for certain officials, such as, I think, nurses, police, schoolteachers, or whatever, not reporting obvious child abuse. That was not, we felt, appropriate. The mere mandatory provision for the Community Advocate would be enough. Putting this in makes it a pretty well fail-safe system, if and when sections 103 and 105 are gazetted. Accordingly, I commend that to this Assembly.
I put on record my thanks to Mr Mark O'Neill, who I know is very experienced in this area and who has been a long-time employee in the ACT courts, for his assistance in his capacity as president of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.50): Mr Speaker, the Government is not supporting Mr Stefaniak's amendments here, but that is not to say that Mr Stefaniak's amendments are anything other than well motivated and well considered and moving in a direction to help counter a very important evil in society. The reason we are not supporting the amendment is, as set out by Mr Stefaniak, the fact that it is an amendment to a section of the Act which has never been brought into force. As Mr Stefaniak noted in his remarks, the Government has given to the Community Law Reform Committee a reference to look at this very difficult question of the effectiveness of mandatory reporting of child abuse.
This section was introduced into the Children's Services Act some years ago, but has never been brought into force. When it was introduced the general feeling was that this was the progressive way to proceed in legislation; that mandatory reporting would be effective in reducing the level of child abuse throughout the community. The considered opinion of professionals in the area is now very divided. It is not clear whether mandatory reporting does, in fact, have substantial benefit. My personal inclination would be to think that it probably would, but professional advice is divided on the subject. Therefore, we have sent this very difficult question to the Community Law Reform Committee.
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