Radio Interview – MIX 104.9 with Katie Woolf

Attorney-General’s portfolio Subjects: Gosling; Working with Children Checks. KATIE WOOLF, HOST : Federal, state and territory Attorneys-General are set to meet in Darwin today discussing strengthening Australia's Working with Children Check system. Ministers will consider a national list of serious criminal offences that would automatically disqualify someone from holding a Working with Children Check, along with consistent risk assessment standards across every jurisdiction.

The Federal Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland is in Darwin. I spoke with her a little bit earlier this morning. Good morning to you, Attorney General.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, ATTORNEY-GENERAL : Good morning. : Thanks so much for your time today. Now, before I get into these very important reforms, I want to ask you about the situation with the Federal Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling being charged yesterday following an alleged assault on the King's representative. Now, that's the Administrator of the Northern Territory, of course.

Are you concerned by this situation? : Well, look, obviously it is a serious matter. I'm not aware of the precise particulars of the counts of assault that were made. I haven't seen the charge sheet.

As you can appreciate, I am limited in what I can say considering that this is now a matter that is before the court, but I'm happy to answer factual questions. But your question goes to, is it concerning? It obviously is concerning, but I would also note that Luke denies the allegations and will be contesting them and the matter is next due in Court on the 1st of September. : Attorney-General, have you spoken to the Member for Solomon? : No, I haven't. : Are you confident that he can remain in the Parliament with this hanging over his head?

I mean, even just the very logistics of the situation that we've got, where our federal representative, Luke Gosling and of course the Administrator of the Northern Territory, very often they're at the same events. I know that these are absolutely allegations at this point in time, but are you confident that he will still be able to do his job to the best of his ability? : Well, again, I can answer that from a legal perspective and I know that there will be interest from your listeners in the legal basis for that.

You'll be aware that the Constitution has certain rules around a person who may be convicted of an offence that's punishable with a certain time frame. So, for imprisonment for more than one year, that provides an exclusion from holding one seat. But again, I'm pointing that out as a fact in the Constitution, and these, of course, are allegations at this stage which will be, as indicated by Luke's legal representative, will be contested.

So, look, I think it is vitally important that all commentary let this matter run its course because it is now before the court, but I understand the question and the interest in it. I would just reiterate that the rule of law states that everyone, regardless of who they are, is treated equally before the court, and I don't provide specific commentary on any cases that are before the court. : Certainly understand that.

But as part of the Labor team, it's not a good look, is it? : Well, again, I don't want to provide commentary around that. I understand that this is a matter of great interest in the media and I respect that questions are being asked about it. And again, I'll provide those answers to the best of my ability without providing commentary. : Look, I know it's a difficult position that you are in as the Attorney-General.

I do just want to ask, there are indeed calls for him to be stripped of his envoy responsibilities, should that happen while those court proceedings are underway? : Well, again, I think we need to let the court proceedings take their course. This is a matter that, as I have acknowledged, is serious and rightly so. I don't want to provide any commentary that would interfere with the running of this matter. : Alright, Attorney-General, I do want to ask you about the very important reason that you are in the Northern Territory today.

We know that federal, state and territory Attorneys-General are set to meet to discuss strengthening Australia's Working with Children system check. Tell me, what exactly are you proposing that we do here? It does follow the horrific situation which unfolded in Victoria where a childcare worker is indeed accused of a number of child sexual offences.

Tell us a little bit more about these changes and what you feel they would mean nationally.Sure : Sure. Well, I think all your listeners would agree that there's nothing more important than keeping our children safe. : Absolutely. : The incidents that you refer to have, unfortunately, we've seen repeated in NSW in recent weeks, including an alleged individual who again had a large number of alleged victims and that even occurred in my local area that I represent.

So, it is deeply distressing. But the role of Government is to make sure that we do everything we can, and we do that not only as a Commonwealth Government, but right across the states and territories. The key reason I'm in Darwin is that I chair the Standing Council of Attorneys-General and for the past year we have been working on attempting to achieve national consistency in Working with Children Checks, which is a very important element, not the only element, but a really important element in keeping children safe.

So, we've made significant progress so far, and that includes every state and territory either passing legislation or having legislation in the Parliament so that if you're banned from holding a check in one jurisdiction, you're actually banned in all of them to give that national consistency. What we are working on now is, as you described, making sure that we build on new elements to automatically ban a person from being granted a check if they've been subject to a certain criminal offence, having national minimum standards to assess risk, but also information sharing between the jurisdictions.

They are the three key points that we're building on today. I'm optimistic that we will get agreement. There is not only good will but a great deal of work, and it is complex work, I should say, that's gone into this.

It's not just a matter of legislation, it's a matter of complex IT systems that don't talk to one another. At a national level, to achieve that consistency, everyone is doing their bit. So, I'm confident that we're going to get additional progress today and it's all about keeping children safe. .

So, you are confident that all the states and territories will be on board? I mean, like, to me, there is nothing more important in making sure that our children are safe. : I agree with you and I think, as I said, there's been really strong goodwill to get this done. I can't overemphasise the fact that this was a recommendation that was made coming out of a Royal Commission in 2015, and we've actually managed, working together as a Commonwealth, to achieve more in a year than had been achieved over the 10 previous.

But, look, there's always more to do and every time we see nefarious individuals who engage in this behaviour, we're all sickened by it. But I think it strengthens the resolve that Governments of any political persuasion work together to do everything we can. : Attorney-General, just a couple of quick ones. I know you're pressed for time, but obviously some of these changes, it will mean that, you know, you're sort of looking at this national list of offences that would automatically bar someone from working with children.

What sort of crimes are we talking about? : Well, these include some around 30 crimes that are pretty obvious that go to serious behaviour. But also, we have evidence that has come forward in the last decade in particular, that shows, for example, mistreatment of animals is often an indicator of the kind of mistreatment that can end up being manifested for children as well.

So, it's not necessarily purely in relation to specific child offences, but they're to be agreed at SCAG. We'll have a discussion of those, but there's around 30 that are under consideration. But just to point out, they're not all in the same sort of category that you would think that apply to children.

There's other forms of behaviours and other types of risk assessment as well. We saw in some of those cases that you mentioned, there were people who came forward later on that said, you know, they thought something was a bit off about these alleged perpetrators, and it's those kinds of risk behaviours that we're trying to pick up as well. So, they will all be discussed today, but a lot of work has come in to been done to get to this point.

So, look, I look forward to meeting with my colleagues today. : Attorney-General, when can we expect, I mean, if everybody does agree to this, when can we expect this to really come into place? : Well, we expect that if we manage to get agreement today, it will be subject to a timeframe that they provide, you know, and that is actually agreed, but I should point out, and timeframes are a legitimate question, we actually managed to establish a pilot by the end of last year for the National Continuous Checking Capability.

So, this is a capability that the Commonwealth has built that says you can plug your state and territory systems into ours and be able to check who is banned in one state, so you can actually give effect to that and we expect that there will be national recognition by mid-2028 is the deadline that we've given ourselves. I realise 2028 seems like a long way away, but we are working on this in pilot stages.

We are breaking this off into manageable pieces of work and I have every confidence that where we can speed things up, we will. : Well, Attorney-General, Federal Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland, always appreciate your time. : Thank you so much and thanks for having me on.