The SDA welcomes the commitment of federal, state and territory Attorneys-General to commission urgent efforts to upgrade working with children checks.
There are 500,000 children employed across Australia, most in fast food, retail and hospitality. But across the country, there are few requirements for adult workers to get working with children checks.
As part of our Protect Young Workers campaign, the SDA has been calling for working with children checks to be mandatory where adults work alongside children and consulting Attorneys-General on this.
There have been far too many incidents where managers have been allowed to continue to work with or manage young workers in retail or fast food, despite being charged with child sex offences.
Employers gain massive financial advantage from employing children at far lower rates of pay than adults. There must be better protections in place to protect under-18 workers and working with children checks is a reasonable requirement.
Thanks to advocacy by the SDA, South Australia has become the first place in the country to ban child sex offenders from working in places where workers under 18 are present.
These reforms mean offenders will now be barred from working in any workplace where they would be working alongside children, including retail and fast food.
In 2024, the SDA launched a new report: Safety Not Guaranteed calling for a range of measures to protect young workers, including a nationally consistent ban of sex offenders working with children, standardised reporting obligations for employers, working with children checks and a targeted Commonwealth review into the sexual safety of young workers.
What we're doing to help
