I too rise to speak on the Worker Screening Amendment (Strengthening the Working with Children Check) Bill 2025. This is the most important bill that we will be debating here in this place this week. For both me and my community in Melbourne’s west, especially in Wyndham, what happened that led to this bill entering this place has caused immense harm, immense grief and immense outrage. I do not think there is any of us, as community members, as parents – and I would ask those opposite to remember that on this side of the house we are also parents. Some of the commentary has been appalling coming from that side of the house. We are community members, we are parents, we are friends and we are family, and all of us are shocked. We are disgusted at the reports of what we have heard has happened in these childcare centres. I have had a centre in my electorate named as one of those that has been identified as one of the sites that abhorrent predator worked at. I have spoken with parents, some of whom are just putting their kids in child care for the very first time – and that is a really big deal for any family, but at this time – and they really are worried that something like that might happen to their child. That is something that all parents, or grandparents, think about.
But what I will say is that this is not the time for politics; it is time for us to take swift and decisive action on this. When news of these atrocities first broke out our government commissioned a rapid review of our childcare settings almost immediately. Now that review has come back to us, and we have committed to implementing all 22 recommendations in full. It is why, in addition to these changes in this bill that we are making today, we will be supporting the sector with a $42 million funding boost in order to give effect to these recommendations.
Roma Britnell interjected.
Sarah CONNOLLY: Acting Speaker, could you counsel the member for South-West Coast if she cannot control herself in the chamber?
The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): Order! I need to hear the member on their feet for their contribution.
Sarah CONNOLLY: Thank you, Acting Speaker. In fact we are going further than these recommendations, and I understand that a subsequent bill will be introduced later this year which will address things like mandatory online child safety training for applicants, which we know we need, using new screening tools to clear applicants and new requirements to clear and track employees across the sector. I really look forward to that work being completed. That is really important work.
Of course this work cannot be done by us alone. All governments have a role to play in strengthening this sector, and the federal government in Canberra I trust are also taking these issues incredibly seriously and share our commitment to strengthening national childcare regulations. But the work we are doing today with this bill is the critical first step to ensuring that our childcare centres are safe, and it will make sure that a person who is banned from working with children in another state or territory will also be automatically banned here in Victoria, which was a key commitment from all governments made less than two weeks ago, mutually recognising interstate bans. It will also allow for the immediate suspension of a person’s working with children clearance upon notification of a charge or relevant finding, be it disciplinary or regulatory, in contrast to the 28-day grace period that currently exists. It will empower regulators to cancel a clearance where it was granted based on false or misleading information, and it will increase time limits for commencing the prosecution of the offence of providing false or misleading information regarding these matters from 12 months to five years and six months. All of these changes are immediately impactful, and they will work to help stop these things from happening again and, most importantly, make sure that our kids are safe when we drop them off at child care. People who have been banned in other states from working with children and who are subject to an allegation or charge that may render them unsuitable to work with children should not in fact be working with children.
Whether it is in our childcare centres, in our schools or beyond, these changes will make sure that individuals like that are not permitted in those settings. That is exactly why I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the house.
