2d ago

NSW to ban people from appealing if working with children check denied

www.abc.net.au

So the article only seems to raise these two cases, and it's not clear to me that either of these two people hurt any kids after appealing their check.

Is it just me or is this cooked? The right to appeal decisions seems fundamental to help reduce malfunctions or biases in a system. If the appeals process is too lax (doesn't seem like it?) then strength it sure but wtf is this move?

20 comments

I assume a working with children check wouldn't have a high standard of evidence and a candidate probably doesn't need a conviction to fail the test. E.g., it would be enough for a previous employer to say "Oh yeah we couldn't prove it but we had some serious complaints that he was fiddling kids". If that is the case, I really don't feel comfortable with this direction. If its more of a case where theres some established quantifiable criteria that would never reasonably pass appeal, then sure... but I don't get what this solves except to save resources.
It strikes me as opportunistic politics to appeal to the emotion of voters--which is just tacky when we are talking about something as serious as peoples careers and child safety.
and a teacher who was charged but never convicted of sexually abusing a foster child.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
- Premier Chris Minns said he was "very distressed" at the reports.
  But he's very distressed at the reports! Won't somebody please think of the children!
- It's cool to assume guilt now.
This seems like a really stupid solution and I have no idea what the government's thinking.
- They're not thinking. They're in kneejerk mode, because of what happened in Victoria. Personally, I'd be surprised if the proposed legislation survived any examination by the courts.
I work in industry. I have met people who are also in industry and give me the massive creeps. I think the current process is about making sure the most obvious cases are screened out, so if you have a criminal record or workplace reportable incident. It is not about making sure kids are never harmed, it is about the low hanging fruit.
In my opinion it is not enough. There absolutely should be an appeal process, but also the process for the initial application should be more stringent.
I also think people such as myself, a mid 30s male, should not be considered safe by default. While I know I would never harm a child there is no real way to screen out someone who would without accidentally screening out me too.
Statistically women are the outlier offenders, around 5% or less for known sexual abuse. It could be that the number is a little more even or less even based on reporting gaps, but I think it is fairly clearly not close to even. For some reason men seem to be fairly vile towards those they are supposed to care for. We need to fix men by fixing our culture and in the interim, maybe we need to consider whether current men are fit for this industry.
- Statistically, women are more likely to just straight up kill kids so there goes your harm mitigation theory.
  
  @Taleya
  "Statistically"
  I would like to see those specific statistics.
  Please tell me where I can see them.
  @rowinofwin
- What in the gender essentialist fuck? You cannot bar all men from jobs involving kids. You need a working with children check to run an extracurricular class, what are you smoking?
  
  Well, in general most crimes are committed by men so we should probably just throw them all in jail. That way they wont even need a WWC. No more crimes, no WWC needed - win,win!
  
  I needed a WWC for a council park worker job, probably in case there's kids at the playground while we're whipper snipping or whatevs.

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