Page 785 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
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This bill is focused on obligations to identify and report child sexual abuse. It amends our criminal law. It amends our mandatory reporting laws and our reportable conduct laws. The comprehensive changes in this bill will support holding offenders to account and ensuring that child abuse gets reported and action is taken in response. The bill introduces a significant new criminal offence for people who reasonably believe a child has been sexually abused and yet fail to report that abuse to police. The royal commission clearly showed that children are unlikely to report abuse or be able to protect themselves. This makes it vital that adults report child sexual abuse if it comes to their attention. If abuse is not reported, a perpetrator may continue to abuse that child and other children.
The process of responding to the royal commission is one of acknowledging our collective failures as a community and taking responsibility. This bill is a direct acknowledgement of our shared responsibility to protect children and our obligation to take action to hold offenders accountable. This new offence applies to all adults and it applies without exception. There has been extensive public conversation about what this means for people whose religious practices would be affected. The bill was drafted following a thorough and rigorous legal analysis. That analysis carefully examined the history of laws relating to religious confessionals and analysed the human rights aspects of the change.
There are important reasons why this bill contains no exceptions for religious practices. Ultimately, when there is an obligation on all adults to act in a particular way to keep children safe, any individual or institution must have a compelling case before an exception is created. There is no such compelling case for religious practices. In fact, the royal commission found that the religious confession in some instances was a factor in facilitating further abuse. The royal commission heard evidence that perpetrators who confessed to sexually abusing children went on to re-abuse and then to seek forgiveness again.
The report by Her Honour Julie Dodds-Streeton which was provided to the government after extensive consultation with a great many stakeholders, including religious bodies, outlined the importance of this new offence and explained how it will contribute to both effective law enforcement and a cultural shift in how we view the reporting of child abuse. As I stated in introducing this legislation, children’s rights to be safe from abuse are paramount. The right to freedom of religion is not absolute, and the freedom to practice religion in a particular way must never take precedence over children’s right to safety.
The bill will also strengthen the ACT’s legal framework for reporting child abuse by adding ministers of religion as mandated reporters under the Children and Young People Act. This amendment means ministers of religion will have to report both the physical and sexual abuse of children to child and youth protective services. Like the new failure to report offence, these new obligations apply even if the relevant information was disclosed in a religious confession, recognising the primacy of protecting children’s safety.
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