Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments

Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments

Reply #600 – Today at 06:35:44 pm

Quote from: LP – on Today at 03:33:40 pm

The perception of a bias possibly exposes a misunderstanding of the generalised mandatory reporting that is in place in Victoria, that is not the same in other states by the way, at least not yet.

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but my understanding the Vic child protection act requires it for all child or youth crime, while and the public assume mandatory reporting only means mandatory reporting of child abuse. That means in Vic the mandatory reporting laws mean mandatory reporting of all children and youths involved in crime as well, they assume a child or youth involved in crime is a victim of some circumstance.

That is not the case in all Australian states, where officers have discretion over reporting in many cases, it's one of the big Federal issues to get it all standardized in the long term. Uniforms laws and reporting across Australia, but it's not there yet.

If you are in doubt, you can always get it clarified by Bec Judd!

You're on the wrong track there LP.

Mandatory reporting in Victoria requires certain professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers, police, etc to report evidence or belief of child physical or sexual abuse to child protection authorities. There's no requirement to report crimes committed by children.

However, there are significant inconsistencies across jurisdictions when it comes to "child crime". For example, the age of criminal responsibility is 10 for Commonwealth offences and in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, and Tasmania, 12 in Victoria, and 14 in the ACT. In all jurisdictions, it's still the prosecution's responsibility to prove that children under 14 could distinguish between right and wrong. From 14 to 17, children are presumed to understand right and wrong, but are subject to milder sanctions than adults.