Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The bill does not place any reporting obligations on employers. Any reporting obligations arising under state or territory laws are not prohibited by the bill. State or territory laws such as those that apply to some workers mandating the reporting of suspected abuse of children would not be affected. However, the current section 106C of the act provides an exemption to the confidentiality obligation where the disclosure is required by an Australian law or is necessary to protect the life, health or safety of the employee or another person. So there is a degree of protection in there for employers. In addition to information available on state and territory websites, you'd be aware, Senator Cash, that 1800RESPECT and the Australian Institute of Family Studies also provide information on mandatory reporting on their websites, and I'd encourage employers to take that up.

I'm looking at the departmental officials now, but, based on that information, I would assume that the same rules apply in relation to work-from-home employees or employees under the age of 18 as exist more generally. So, everything that I've said already applies to those employees as well. As I've sort of implied, for employees under the age of 18, there may be particular obligations in relation to mandatory reporting of suspected abuse of those children. But the same exemption for the confidentiality obligation and the other things that I've already said apply in that situation, too.