Australia

Abstract

One of the most striking developments in the legal regulation of the education system in Australia in recent years has been the enactment across Australia’s eight State and Territory jurisdictions of legislation aimed at the prevention and reporting of child sexual abuse (CSA). Governments, educational authorities, schools and teachers are now tending to take seriously the issue of CSA - or, on the most cynical view, at least to take seriously the fact that they can be held liable in negligence for failing to prevent CSA in the first place (for example, if perpetrated by a teacher), and or for failing to prevent further CSA (whether perpetrated by a teacher, other school employee, or any other wrongdoer who abuses a child).
There are two major domains of legislative action in this context. The first domain concerns the imposition of criminal history checks on existing and prospective applicants for registration as teachers, to minimise the likelihood of CSA being perpetrated by teachers on students. Legislation has been developing since the late 1990s in this arena, but has recently proliferated. The second domain concerns the introduction of mandatory reporting legislation requiring teachers to report known and reasonably suspected CSA, to ensure that teachers and schools take steps to detect and report known and reasonably suspected CSA perpetrated by any wrongdoer. While mandatory reporting legislation for teachers has been gradually introduced since the late 1970s, fresh developments continue to occur in this arena as well.