The Hodgman majority Liberal Government has today introduced new legislation which will lift the veil of the confessional, for the purposes of reporting child sexual abuse.
The Criminal Code and Related Legislation Amendment (Child Abuse) Bill 2018 delivers on our commitment to implement a number of recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The legislation reflects our intent to make people in religious ministry mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse, and make it a crime for any person to fail to report child abuse.
To be clear, this Bill does not change the existing offence provision in the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1997 relating to people who are mandatory reporters but fail to do so.
The Bill also makes amendments to the Evidence (Children and Special Witnesses) Act 2001 to strengthen the use of pre-recording audio visual evidence for sexual offences to ensure that victims, where possible, are not required to give evidence twice and may have their evidence taken early in the process to reduce the risk of re-traumatisation.
The legislation makes it clear that all members of the community must do everything in their power to protect children and prevent child abuse from occurring. There is no excuse for failure to report the horrific abuse of children, least of all for institutions who have been named in the Royal Commission as failing to prevent child abuse in the past.