{"id":3494,"date":"2019-08-21T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=3494"},"modified":"2019-08-21T16:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T16:00:23","slug":"strengthening-child-protection-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/08\/21\/strengthening-child-protection-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"STRENGTHENING CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Children will be better protected by legislation introduced in Parliament today which builds on the NSW Government\u2019s response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.<br \/>\nMinister for Families, Communities and Disability Services Gareth Ward said the\u00a0<em>Children\u2019s Guardian Bill 2019<\/em>\u00a0will strengthen the independent regulator and help build more accountable, child safe organisations.<br \/>\n\u201cProtecting children and young people is a top priority for our Government and this Bill sends an unequivocal message to all child-related organisations,\u201d Mr Ward said.<br \/>\n\u201cOrganisations and agencies that engage contractors who work with children, as well as religious bodies, will be brought into the Reportable Conduct Scheme, with new penalties for anyone who fails to comply.<br \/>\n\u201cThe Bill will give the Children\u2019s Guardian greater authority and oversight to help organisations create safer environments for more than 1.5 million children in NSW.\u201d<br \/>\nThe reforms will implement a number of recommendations of the Royal Commission to ensure the Children\u2019s Guardian has the legal powers to keep our kids safe.<br \/>\nThe NSW Government has had the most comprehensive response of any state or territory to the Royal Commission, with more than $570 million invested to protect children and support survivors of child sexual abuse.<br \/>\nAnglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies welcomed the changes, which he said would close the loopholes in legislation identified by the Ombudsman.<br \/>\n\u201cThe Anglican Church, along with other churches, has been very supportive of this move and I am glad that the highest level of protection for children in our state, will be maintained,\u201d Archbishop Davies said.<br \/>\nThe Office of the Children\u2019s Guardian is an independent Statutory Authority that works to protect children and young people by promoting and regulating quality, child safe organisations and services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Children will be better protected by legislation introduced in Parliament today which builds on the NSW Government\u2019s response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services Gareth Ward said the\u00a0Children\u2019s Guardian Bill 2019\u00a0will strengthen the independent regulator and help build more accountable, child safe organisations. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/08\/21\/strengthening-child-protection-legislation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;STRENGTHENING CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}