Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about one of Australia's largest employers of young people, our sporting clubs and working with children permits. I want to ask the question: how could a convicted paedophile get to work with teenagers at one of our most famous fast food outlets and a famous football club? How could a young victim turn up to play baseball and discover his attacker was the umpire?

The food chain is McDonald's. The football club is the Penrith Panthers. The baseball club is the Penrith Baseball Club. The convicted child molester is Joel Camilleri of Kingswood Park in Sydney. He not only got a job at McDonald's, Penrith Panthers and at Pizza Hut in Cambridge Gardens but started offering 14-year-old male staff members a ride home from work. The mother of one of his young victims—I will call him 'Paul'—saw what was going on and alerted McDonald's. She was virtually told to go jump—she was told he was an employee, had a right to work there and, basically, 'go away'.

This was a brave mother who had sat through the court case years earlier after her boy told his dad he had been interfered with by Camilleri, the canteen manager at the Penrith Baseball Club. The family contacted the police and they were interviewed at Mount Druitt Police Station. Camilleri was subsequently questioned, arrested and charged, and pleaded guilty to the sexual assault charges. He was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence and released back into the community. His name went onto the sex offenders' register, but, of course, that is secret. Only top brass police have access to it. That is why a national public register of convicted sex offenders is so urgent.

To add to this family's emotional turmoil, Paul's mother went to McDonald's to warn them. She went to the police and was warned not to mention the paedophile's name in public or she could be in trouble. She went to politicians, and nobody tried to help her. Nobody asked the obvious bloody question: didn't McDonald's, employer of thousands of teenagers, have a working with children permit policy? Didn't Pizza Hut? The answer was: no. She then turned to other members of parliament and anyone else she thought could assist her. For five years, she said, she received no response to any calls for help. She said that years were spent asking politicians to help her. It all fell on deaf ears. She told me, 'Nobody would listen to me.' She said she started to doubt herself—was she just being a troublemaker? But then she remembered how Camilleri had been allowed to still umpire boys baseball games at the Penrith Baseball Club after he had been arrested. She remembered how she had to take her heartbroken boy out of the club and away from the sport that he loved to play.

That victim is now 20 years old and still traumatised. His mother hit brick wall after brick wall—walls of indifference. She wrote to me last month and said, 'The trauma my son has gone through, and is still going through, is life changing. I feel I need to stand up and try and prevent this from happening to another child. Any help would be appreciated.' She said although the pain cannot be taken from her family, she hopes it will prevent other children from becoming victims.

Well, we have some good news. I have to give McDonald's credit for this—for acting swiftly and decisively after my staff alerted them. We alerted McDonald's on 31 August. We raised many questions about the absence of criminal background checks and were told that when people across Australia applied for positions with McDonald's on the internet they were only asked: 'Have you been convicted of a criminal offence?' The applicants were given a choice to answer yes or no. Within a week, we were told that the McDonald's IT department is implementing a compulsory criminal background check for over-18-year-old applicants, and predicted this will be rolled out nationally within six to eight weeks.

We informed Pizza Hut in Cambridge Gardens, where Camilleri was still employed. The store owner was horrified, and he was sacked for lying on his original employment documents—automatic grounds for dismissal. The Penrith Baseball Club has confirmed to us that Camilleri has been banned, and police have told the club to contact them if he tries to go back. We have also been told that Baseball New South Wales now has implemented strict employment practices. All potential staff must now be subjected to working with children checks. You would have thought that that was a given.

Finally, I want to applaud a mother who never gave up. You have protected who knows how many children and have made a major company lift its game.