The safety of our children should always be our top priority.
There are so many families and communities that have been deeply impacted by horrific incidents recently that children in Victorian childcare centres have been subject to instances of unspeakable alleged abuse.
This shocking exposure has affected us all, whether you have a child in childcare or not, it has made us question what protection systems are in place to keep our children safe within care.
It has made us question the credibility of the Working With Children Check (WWCC) process.
It has made us question what the state government is doing to make sure these terrible circumstances do not happen again.
Unfortunately, many of these questions remain unanswered as the Allan Labor Government has still failed to act and implement recommendations made in September 2022, when the Ombudsman found Victoria had one of weakest systems in Australia.
These commonsense reforms from the Ombudsman should be legislated as a matter of urgency.
Instead under Labor there remains loopholes within a system that continues to catastrophically fail Victorian children on their watch.
While the government did nothing, the worst thing that could happen happened.
Children were abused by a childcare worker, with a WWCC who was charged with more than 70 offences.
Another associated person holding a valid WWCC was charged after being in possession of child abuse material.
Being caught out now, the state government last week rushed headfirst to introduce legislation – and they have not got it all right.
Loopholes remain, and the Ombudsman recommendations are yet to be introduced.
This bill takes only minor steps to improve the operation of the working with children check system.
It also fails to implement the recommendation from the state government’s own rapid review into child safety.
This is just not good enough.
Three weeks ago, the Coalition put a bill before Parliament to address all the Ombudsman concerns which was voted down by Labor.
Again, last week, the Labor Government, together with the Greens, the Animal Justice Party, Legalise Cannabis Victoria, and the Libertarian Party voted down new laws brought forward by the Liberals and Nationals to fully implement recommendations made by the Victorian Ombudsman to fix our broken Working With Children Check (WWCC) system.
This is the second time in a month Labor has voted down laws that would keep children safe.
The government continues to let children down, and they should be ashamed.
