Bright Futures National Symposium

I begin today by acknowledging the Kabi Kabi peoples and the Jinibara peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land we are meeting on and recognise all other people or families with connection to the lands and waters of the region.

I am so pleased to be here with you as we conclude the Daniel Morcombe Foundation Bright Futures National Symposium.

It’s incredibly useful to hear from experts about contemporary best-practice and responses to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse, and to learn from your lived experience, your professional experience, your advocacy, views and expertise.

I particularly acknowledge Bruce and Denise Morcombe for honouring their son Daniel’s legacy with such passion and commitment.

Every child and young person should be safe from sexual abuse. The horrific recent childcare case in Victoria, like Daniel’s story did over 20 years ago, has galvanised the community to demand we do more to make that a reality, for every child. It is our collective responsibility to better protect our children, and to ensure strong frameworks are in place to create safe environments everywhere they go to learn, play and be cared for.

At the core of any government lies an important and unshakable responsibility: the protection of children.

Every child deserves to grow up free from harm, with the care and support they need to realise their potential.

In my former portfolio, as Minister for Communications, I legislated age limits for social media and amended the Basic Online Safety Expectations regulations to ensure the best interest of the child were a primary consideration in the design and operation of online digital services.

Now as Attorney-General, I will continue to act and work in partnership to keep children safe. While there is more to do, it is important to reflect on the progress we have made. The Government is leading a significant program of work under the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021-2030.

The National Strategy was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and responds to approximately 100 other Royal Commission recommendations. The National Strategy is a 10-year, whole-of-nation policy framework agreed to by Premiers and Chief Ministers. It seeks to reduce the risk, extent and impact of child sexual abuse and related harms in Australia.

Since the launch of the National Strategy, we have made important progress in addressing child sexual abuse, including:

• Launching Australia’s first national awareness raising and behavioural change campaign on child sexual abuse, ‘One Talk at a Time’, which aims to prevent child sexual abuse by encouraging education around the issue while enabling ongoing, proactive, preventative conversations with children, young people and other adults.
• Distributing key resources to support the campaign to over 4,000 primary schools across Australia, including a parents’ night toolkit to encourage conversations within school communities. We have also distributed the ‘My superhero voice’ children’s storybook to over 1,000 early learning centres across Australia, and 60 multicultural, settlement and family service organisations.
• Supporting implementation of the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, including delivering Child Safety Risk Management Resources, and
• We have also launched minimum practice standards for specialist and community support services responding to child sexual abuse, to promote safe and effective services that support people who have been impacted.

While this work is underway, the Government is also progressing urgent reforms to Working with Children Checks.

Working with Children Checks are an important safeguarding tool to screen people who work with, or care for, children.

The recent charging of a Victorian childcare worker with more than 70 child sexual abuse offences is sickening.

Carers and the community should have confidence that children are safe in all settings, especially child care centres.

In response, I am actively working with my state and territory counterparts to address system gaps and inconsistencies in worker screening checks, and ways to enhance information sharing and real-time reporting.

Working with children check reform will be the top agenda item when I chair my first meeting of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General this month.

I am also working closely with the Minister for Education Jason Clare who is progressing work with his state and territory counterparts to enhance safety outcomes for children in the early childhood education and care sector. In the most recent sitting fortnight – the first of the 48^th Parliament - Minister Clare introduced and passed legislation to cut Commonwealth Child Care Subsidy funding for centres that continuously fail to meet safety requirements with the intention of lifting sector standards.

This is about making sure the safety and quality standards in childcare centres are what parents expect, and children deserve.

The Government’s commitment to keeping children safe extends beyond physical spaces into the online world.

The digital age has reshaped how children learn, play, and connect.

However, it has also opened dangerous doors that offenders are increasingly exploiting. From anonymous chat rooms and gaming platforms to social media and encrypted messaging apps, the risks of grooming and exploitation continue to evolve.

The Criminal Code and Online Safety Act provide a strong legislative framework to prevent and respond to the online exploitation of children. However, technologies are dynamic and fast-moving, which is why the Government is further considering how to strengthen responses to evolving online harms, and I welcome engagement with the sector on these issues.

Noting the theme of the Bright Futures program, I do want to particularly acknowledge that harmful sexual behaviours displayed by children and young people is a growing concern in Australia. The Australian Child Maltreatment Study has found that one in four Australian adults has experienced child sexual abuse, and in most of these cases, the abuse was committed by other children or young people known to the victim.

The evidence shows that evidence-based therapeutic responses tailored to each child's needs can be effective in stopping harmful sexual behaviours from reoccurring or escalating.

This reinforces the importance of identifying and responding early to concerning sexual behaviours.

As some of you may know, my department is working with the Australian Centre for Child Protection, Professor Simon Hackett from Durham University and Lumenia Consulting, to develop the National Clinical and Therapeutic Framework.

This Framework will offer guidance to governments, policy makers, community organisations and services for responding to children and young people who have displayed concerning or harmful sexual behaviours.

We know there is so much more work to be done. But we must continue to advocate that child sexual abuse is preventable.

Preventing and responding to child sexual abuse is an important national issue that the Government takes extremely seriously.

We are committed to working to address known and evolving issues to keep children safe, including in relation to working with children checks, online harms – including AI and child sexual abuse material, and harmful sexual behaviours displayed by children and young people.

For Government, listening to sector experts, service providers, victims and survivors, including young people with lived experience, is crucial to developing and implementing child sexual abuse prevention, and improving the experiences of victims and survivors.

All children and young people have a right to be safe from child sexual abuse and it is our collective responsibility to protect them.