5 October 2015

, Minister for Justice

Consultation on amendments to Registration to Work with Vulnerable People Act

The Hodgman Liberal Government has released for public consultation a Bill to improve the operation of the Registration to Work with Vulnerable People Act.

Tasmania’s Registration to Work With Vulnerable People scheme commenced on 1 July 2014 and is being phased in across sectors over three years.

Since then the Registrar of the scheme has identified a number of administrative improvements that could further improve the screening of applicants. A number of these amendments are in line with the recommendations of the ‘Working with Children Checks Report’ issued by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RCIRCSA). 

Amendments in the draft bill include:

• Allowing for an activity considered to be high risk to be prescribed an ‘Interim regulated activity’ should any doubt arise that it is covered by legislation;
• Giving the Registrar the power to put an interim bar on a person engaging in an activity while their application is being processed and a full risk assessment is undertaken, if the Registrar receives any information that indicates that person could be a risk to children or vulnerable people.
• Providing the Registrar with power to monitor or audit whether an employer has engaged an unregistered person in a regulated activity. This is currently an offence but the Registrar does not have power to monitor compliance.
• Instituting a legal obligation for all relevant information held by reportable bodies to be provided to the Registrar;

The Department of Justice has consulted with key Tasmanian stakeholders on the proposed amendments since around June 2015. It will be out for public consultation from today until Friday October 16.

The draft bill and more information about the amendments are available at www.justice.tas.gov.au/community-consultation or by calling 1300 13 55 13.

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