Amount of people barred from working with children in Qld nearly doubles
Thousands more people are being barred from working with children in Queensland, according to reporting from the state government.
Annual reporting from Queensland's Department of Justice showed in the last financial year, 6,403 people were denied working with children checks under Queensland's blue card system.
An anonymised Queensland Blue Card required for working with children. (Supplied)
It's nearly double the amount previously refused, with 3,712 people prevented from holding the passes in the 2024-2025 financial year.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it was the sign of a strong system.
"Queensland has one of Australia's strongest working with children screening systems, with robust safeguards in place to protect children and young people," they said.
Increased refusals don't mean safer kids, academics warn
Twenty-five years since it was introduced, more than 1.4 million people are monitored through the blue card system, a figure up by about 100,000 people more than last year.
The government expanded the scope of roles requiring blue cards in December, following a landmark report into failings in the child safety sector.
The report, prompted by the serial offending of paedophile, Ashley Paul Griffith, found the blue card system had functioned as intended but offered no meaningful protection to children.
The University of Queensland's Tamara Walsh said blue card refusals didn't mean a safer system.
University of Queensland law professor Tamara Walsh said a higher number of blue card refusals did not mean a more protective system.
"A lot of discretion is given to decision makers when they're deciding whether to give someone a blue card or not," she said.
Professor Walsh said someone charged with drug possession when they were young could be prevented from working in the youth justice space in the future, for example.
"We're actually preventing people from getting blue cards who we would want to have blue cards, so the system is not being strengthened in the ways in which we'd all hope.
"What we're doing is capturing a whole lot of people who don't pose a protective risk to children and we're missing people who do."
The department had a 98 per cent clearance rate at the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal last year, despite a 25 per cent increase in lodgements, the government report said.
Queensland's Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said a rigorous and fair framework was in place. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Further changes on the way
In August, Queensland's Attorney-General and Justice Minister Deb Frecklington introduced legislation for a new Child Protection Commission.
The centralised commission would coordinate agencies and departments — including blue card services — to share intelligence and investigate concerning behaviour that may not meet the threshold for police investigation.
Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Integrity Deb Frecklington said the system was making kids safer.
"The safety of children remains the paramount consideration in Queensland's Blue Card system," she said.
"The Crisafulli Government will continue to support a framework that is both rigorous and fair."
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