Every child will have an interpreter provided where necessary. The aim of the legislation is to alleviate, to some extent, the trauma associated with giving evidence in court. The exclusion of child defendants from the legislation will be reviewed. Where the Children's Court is sitting, the hearings are in camera, and only interested parties are allowed in the courtroom. The magistrate may give special permission for the press to be allowed into the courtroom, but they may not report the names of the child or children concerned.
Permission is given to the press very infrequently.
New South Wales 1422. In New South Wales a child under the age of 10 years is not criminally responsible for any act or omission. A child under the age of 14 years is not criminally responsible for an act or omission unless it is proved that at the time of doing the act or making the omission he or she had the capacity to know that he or she ought not do the act or make the omission. The legislation enables courts to require parents to be present during criminal proceedings against children, to require children to give undertakings to submit to parental supervision and to require parents to be present at court in the event of a breach of such an undertaking. The legislation further enables a court to require a child that has been found guilty of an offence and the child's parents to undergo family counselling and makes it an offence for a parent, by wilful default or by neglect to exercise proper care and guardianship, to contribute to the commission of an offence by a child.