Overview
- The federal government will invest $37 million over five years in a National Continuous Checking Capability, with a pilot available for jurisdictions to join by the end of the year and attorneys-general meeting in Brisbane today.
- The system will continuously track changes to criminal histories of Working With Children Check holders and make a ban in one jurisdiction effective across all others.
- While Canberra funds the central pilot, states and territories must pay for and implement technical upgrades to link their screening systems.
- New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania have introduced laws to recognise interstate WWCC decisions, with the ACT, Northern Territory and Western Australia committing to introduce laws by year’s end.
- The initiative answers a 2015 royal commission call to close information‑sharing gaps and follows heightened scrutiny of childcare safety, including July laws enabling the Commonwealth to withhold subsidies from unsafe centres.