Child Abuse and Neglect: a socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia

Figure 1.6: Timeline showing key developments, Tasmania, 2003-2012

1.5.7. Victoria

1.5.7.1. Original position at 1 January 2003: Victoria

Children and Young Persons Act 1989

At 1 January 2003, the Children and Young Persons Act 1989 (Vic) s 64(1A) imposed an obligation to report a ‘belief on reasonable grounds that a child is in need of care and protection on a ground referred to in paragraph (c) or (d) of section 63’ as soon as practicable after forming the belief, and after each occasion on which he or she becomes aware of any further reasonable grounds for the belief. The penalty was 10 penalty units.

Section 63 set out grounds on which a child would be defined as being ‘in need of protection’. Section 63(c) and (d) stated (our emphasis):

3. 
   the child has suffered, or is likely to suffer, significant harm as a result of physical injury and the child's parents have not protected, or are unlikely to protect, the child from harm of that type;
   
4. 
   the child has suffered, or is likely to suffer, significant harm as a result of sexual abuse and the child's parents have not protected, or are unlikely to protect, the child from harm of that type;
   

Therefore, the duty was limited to two categories of abuse: physical ‘injury’ and sexual abuse. This made Victoria’s reporting duty much narrower than existed in most other jurisdictions. This could be expected to produce a much lower number of reports.⁴⁰

In addition, the duty imposed a threshold of significance of harm, which, uniquely, even applied to sexual abuse. In practice, this would not be expected to reduce reports of sexual abuse, but would have the reasonable intention to limit reports of physical abuse to sufficiently serious cases.