That ICPA (Aust) continues to lobby the Federal Government to implement a national Blue Card system, or relevant Working with Children Check in Australia.
In Australia, the blue card system, or relevant working with children check, regulates activities that are essential to children’s lives including education, childcare, healthcare, sporting, and cultural activities. There are eight Blue Cards, or Working with Children Checks (WWCC) in Australia, a separate one for each state and territory, and each working independently of each other.
Having a state-by-state/territory Blue Card, or WWCC, is affecting tutors, teachers, health professionals, police, volunteers, and volunteer organisations, as they have to navigate the relevant state and territory legislations and research what is involved in the screening and application processes to work or volunteer with children. This is and can be a barrier to workers and volunteers coming into rural and remote areas to work and volunteer with children and makes it difficult for them to move from one state or territory to another.
For example, the BushED tutoring program, places educational volunteers from around the nation with rural and remote families to provide relief and educational support. This program is called upon particularly by geographically families to provide educational tutoring assistance to students enrolled in distance education. However, the state-by-state/territory Blue Card system, or relevant WWCC, can be a hindrance to volunteers from interstate as they must have the relevant Blue Card, or Working with Children Card, for the state or territory in which they wish to volunteer. Further, the application process can be time consuming, particularly if tutors (and their partners) wish to volunteer in multiple states or Territories.
The need for a national approach to the Blue Card or WWCC has been advocated for many years. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse 2015 recommended a nationally consistent approach to the WWCC which if implemented would not only protect children, but also address the problem of a Blue Card or WWCC issued in one jurisdiction not being recognised or transportable to another.
