Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00856:reg:7
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00856
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 7
Character Range: 2438–4544

7  Significant risk statement
 For section 42S(2) of the Act, the exclusion in section 6 is necessary because of the significant risk in the ACT to the health and safety of workers or the public, in particular, to children. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its final report on 15 December 2017. The Royal Commission identified risks to children that arise when information about sexual abuse by teachers is not shared across jurisdictions. A lack of information sharing between employers or registration authorities can enable perpetrators to continue to pose a risk to children by moving between schools or jurisdictions. A number of recommendations were made in relation to improving information sharing across sectors, including a nationally consistent information exchange scheme.
Under existing licensing arrangements (including mutual recognition), a teacher is issued with an ACT registration or permit to teach, creating a regular regime of assessment of eligibility and fitness. Under automatic mutual recognition, the ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI), must obtain and share information on eligibility of teachers for automatic deemed registration through information exchange between TQI and its jurisdictional counterparts.
The ACT is participating in a National Information Sharing Project to address the recommendations from the Royal Commission. The Project is recognised as a key enabler to support the effective implementation of automatic mutual recognition for teaching registrations, without further exacerbating the risks to child safety through the current, inadequate information sharing arrangements, highlighted by the Royal Commission. However, the Project is likely to be delivered over a number of years and will not be completed by 1 July 2022, when the automatic mutual recognition scheme is fully implemented in the Territory.
An exemption for five years will enable the ACT to continue to engage with other jurisdictions to implement a nationally consistent information exchange scheme with safeguards to protect children.