Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee (part 3 of 3)
26 October 2026
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Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee Australian Parliament
00:00 - 00:22
Speaker 1
We work quite closely across a number of agencies across the Commonwealth and in relevant states to address those structural barriers. So we have that constant engagement as different programs come up and their relevancy to the territory, we work with the different agency accordingly.
00:22 - 01:03
Speaker 7
Okay, thank you. Just two more questions, thank you, Chair. On working with children checks, last time I was on the island, I was talking to a few people who were really concerned about the lack of any sort of framework for working with children checks. And the Minister advised that her department was working with the Queensland government to assess the feasibility of extending the Queensland working with children check arrangements to Norfolk Island. I'm wondering if there's any progress made on that this year and when those arrangements are expected to be implemented.
01:03 - 02:13
Speaker 1
So, Senator, that work's still underway and sort of working with Queensland. But I can outline a number of temporary measures that we have in place that include strengthening regulation at Banyan Park Learning Centre. We have a child welfare officer who is appointed and their role is to investigate neglect and abuse and make decisions on care and protection orders and provide safeguards equivalent to those available under state-based systems. And then we've also been working with AFP in the digitization of Norfolk Island criminal records that enable the criminal history information to be automatically available through the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission database for workers screening, strengthening the ability to identify and prevent unsuitable individuals from working with children. And then we have a number of bespoke clauses in contracts as executed as well to support that.
So there is a number of elements that we're doing to have those temporary measures in place while the other work is underway.
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