MEDIA STATEMENT
8 December 2025
Firstly, we acknowledge the courage of victims and survivors and families who contributed to the In Plain Sight report. Their voices make it impossible to ignore the urgent need for change.
The findings of the Queensland Child Death Review Board’s ‘In Plain Sight’ report are stark and damning. They expose unacceptable system failures that left children unprotected and allowed one of Australia’s worst offenders to continue abusing for years.
The report confirms that children, parents and staff repeatedly raised concerns and systems failed to respond.
No child should ever be placed in harm’s way because systems failed to act. As a community, we cannot turn away from what this report has brought to light.
The National Centre fully supports the intent and direction of the report recommendations. We are committed to playing our part in building a system where abuse is prevented, detected earlier and never dismissed or overlooked. Specifically, we welcome and support the proposed reforms, including:
- Introducing a Queensland Reportable Conduct Scheme: a long overdue safeguard that will require organisations to report and investigate allegations of child abuse, not hide or minimise them
- Creating a Child Safeguarding Intelligence Hub: a step to ensure information is shared, risks are identified early and no child falls through the cracks
- Integrating Child Safe Standards, Working with Children Checks and the new Reportable Conduct Scheme under a single regulator, which will reduce fragmentation and ensuring consistent oversight
- Strengthening justice responses and ensuring lifelong support for victims and survivors, recognising that healing, accountability and safety must underpin every part of the system
These reforms matter and they will help ensure that what happened in Queensland and what has happened to far too many children, can never happen again.
Protecting children is a responsibility that must be shared across organisations, systems and communities.
We are committed to working constructively with government and sector partners to ensure the reforms announced today create the lasting, meaningful change that Queensland’s children deserve.
More than that, we need stronger, nationally consistent measures to safeguard all children in Australia.
Today, the National Centre has published a policy position on early childhood education reform. It calls for unified national action to ensure a robust and consistent approach across the country.
