Ministerial Forum on Child Safety

The Albanese Government will host a Ministerial Forum on Child Safety, inviting all states and territories, to progress national reforms to prevent child sexual abuse in Australia.

National Child Protection Week highlights the need for governments to do all we can to strengthen existing national frameworks to keep children safe.

This Ministerial Forum will explore reforms to Working with Children Checks, standards for reportable conduct and information sharing between states and territories.

Inconsistencies across systems can put children at risk. Improving how states and territories and organisations work together will better support and meet the needs of children and young people, and their families and carers. Importantly, it will help to keep kids safe.

The important reforms explored by the Forum will align with the work of the National Office for Child Safety in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; and the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021-2030, Australia’s first whole-of-nation framework to preventing and responding to child sexual abuse.

This will also complement the work being undertaken under the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032, which includes measures to prevent and respond to sexual violence.

I am looking forward to working with state and territory ministers to reach agreement on these important reforms to better protect children.