Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party parliamentarian Tania Maxwell has welcomed the Victorian Ombudsman’s reported investigation of an appalling child protection data breach that led to the rape of a 13-year-old boy.
The Northern Victoria MP said her party fully supported a formal review of how Alex Jones, now serving a six-year jail sentence for sexual assault, got a job for 17 months with a contractor working with children in a program funded by the former Department of Health and Human Services.
Victoria’s Information Commissioner subsequently found Jones continued to access the department’s client relationship database on 260 occasions for more than 12 months after he left the role.
Jones also conducted 150 searches of the database, revealing confidential, sensitive information about clients, including vulnerable young people, before his access was terminated.
“It beggars belief how a worker could still access a confidential database after he’d left his job, let alone use it to search, meet and groom young children,” Ms Maxwell said.
“It’s a public disgrace.
“The former DHHS*, responsible for managing, maintaining and providing child protection at the time the breaches took place, must be held to account for this shocking violation of the child safety standards it was charged to uphold.
“Not only did it lead to a horrifying crime.
“It shows that the department utterly failed the child who became the victim of this offender while relying on its protection.”
Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party has called for the continual enhancement of Victoria’s child protection system.
Speaking on the government’s Child Wellbeing and Safety Standards (Child Safe Standards Compliance and Enforcement) Amendment Bill in June, Ms Maxwell said legislation aimed at better protecting children was always close to her heart.
“The overriding purpose of this legislation is to foster an increased focus on child safety within thousands of Victorian organisations,” she said.
“It is aimed at improving the way that the standards, policies, procedures and practices of those organisations are regulated so as to more effectively prevent, disclose and respond to allegations and instances of child abuse.
“But the harms and costs of child abuse remain unacceptably high.
“We can start to bring these down if we link more closely with the work of other states, territories and the federal government and align the Victorian child safe standards with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations.
“We also need Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland to sign up for a national child protection scheme so information on people deemed a risk to work with children can be cross-checked in these jurisdictions.”
NOTE: * The former DHHS branch responsible for child protection in Victoria was re-named the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing in February 2021.
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