Portfolio — 30 March 2026

The Attorney-General, Ms Rowland, used question time on 30 March to present a broad-front account of the government's work on child sexual abuse, covering five distinct policy levers: survivor compensation, national working-with-children check harmonisation, law-enforcement resourcing, community support grants, and a new prevention campaign [TA-260330-house-326949c748de:s248].

The most significant cross-portfolio element was the Attorney-General's reference to legislation introduced by the Assistant Treasurer that prevents convicted abusers from sheltering assets in superannuation — a measure designed to ensure survivors can access compensation rather than face judgment-proof defendants. This Treasury-Attorney-General intersection is notable: the instrument sits in the superannuation framework but its explicit purpose is justice for abuse survivors.

On jurisdiction, the Attorney-General reported that seven of Australia's eight jurisdictions have now enacted harmonised working-with-children check reforms, so that a ban imposed in one state or territory applies nationally. The eighth jurisdiction's legislation is expected to pass within months, bringing a long-standing gap in cross-border child protection to a close.

The prosecution data the Attorney-General cited was striking: the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions recorded 1,500 proven child sex exploitation offences in 2024–25, making this the single most prevalent category of Commonwealth offences prosecuted [TA-260330-house-326949c748de:s248]. Against that caseload, the government's $35 million increase in CDPP funding — framed as enabling more successful prosecutions — takes on direct operational significance [TA-260330-house-326949c748de:s248].

A separate $12.2 million grant program supports organisations working with children who have suffered abuse and those displaying harmful sexual behaviours.

Rounding out the account, the Attorney-General described 'One Talk At A Time', characterised as Australia's first national awareness-raising campaign on child sexual abuse prevention. The campaign targets adults, encouraging ongoing proactive conversations with young people — a supply-side prevention logic that sits upstream of the enforcement and compensation measures.

Taken together, the parliamentary statement positions the government's response as systemic rather than reactive: legislative reform at the federal-state interface, prosecutorial resourcing scaled to a documented caseload, financial support for affected children, and a primary-prevention initiative. The records available cover only this single question-time contribution; no ministerial media releases are present in this window.