Tasmania’s child safety regulator has addressed an “untenable situation” where police officers may have been exempt from a key measure to safeguard children from abuse.
The Office of the Independent Regulator (OIR) oversees organisations’ compliance with mandatory reporting for suspected or confirmed child abuse involving staff.
In Tasmania, organisation heads are required to report to the OIR, triggering an investigation and an update to the regulator within 30 days.
Tasmania Police stopped complying in August last year, the regulator said.
The regulator is concerned there may be an eight-month gap in mandatory reporting. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
It said Tasmania Police advised that it had legal advice that mandatory reporting did not apply to police officers.
“To remedy this untenable situation, the OIR has met with the Attorney-General and has put forward a regulatory amendment to explicitly include Tasmania Police, ideally retroactively from 1 August, 2025,”
the regulator said.
The state government said this “urgent fix” took effect last week, but it was not yet able to confirm if Tasmania Police would be required to account for the eight-month gap in reporting.
Independent Regulator Louise Coe told state parliament she requested the change be made retrospectively.
“Because from 1 August last year they had stopped reporting the identity of matters through to my office,” she said.
“I know there have been instances [in that time period] where there’s been significant interactions with young people I’m concerned about,”
Ms Coe said.
Independent Regulator Louise Coe told parliament about her concerns. (Supplied: OIR)
Ms Coe said the legal advice police provided said it could not give the names of police officers involved to the regulator.
“With our system, we put the subject of [the] allegation’s details in … and track that profile, so that [omission] is a concerning aspect,” she told parliament.
Tasmania Police told the ABC it wrote to the regulator because it had been reviewing its procedures under state child safety legislation.
Police to internally review matters, parliament hears
Ms Coe’s comments were made during a parliamentary hearing for the recommendations of Tasmania’s commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse.
The commission’s recommendations led to law changes in 2024 in relation to mandatory reporting.
Tasmania Police was among organisations scrutinised in the state’s commission of inquiry, which found the police force did not adequately respond to “credible reports” emerging about the late paedophile cop Paul Reynolds, who groomed and sexually abused up to 52 children.
Greens MLC Cassy O’Connor asked Ms Coe whether Tasmania Police had informed her whether the organisation had “any sort of child safety framework of policies or practices in place … given there’s been a history of the most egregious breaches of trust and damage to children”.
Upper house Greens MLC Cassy O’Connor questioned the independent regulator in parliament. (ABC News: Mackenzie Heard)
Ms Coe replied: “Up until that sort of change in focus, I think there’s been quite good engagement [with Tasmania Police]”, which she said had implemented a child safety action plan.
“It’s just really concerning now that it’s a gap,” Ms Coe said.
“We’ve seen some matters that have come through reception prisons involving police officers. That’s concerning. And we don’t have oversight of that,”
she said.
In Tasmania, children accused of crime can be held in adult reception prisons in watch houses — something advocates have long called for an end to.
Ms Coe said told parliament she had heard of “some matters” at Tasmania’s reception prisons. (Supplied: The Office of the Custodial Inspector’s Children in Tasmania’s prisons review report 2025)
“And what happens in that instance if a young person reports they’ve been physically or sexually harmed by a Tasmanian Police employee?” Ms O’Connor then asked.
“My understanding is they [Tasmania Police] will still do an internal review,” Ms Coe said.
Tasmania Police ‘updating protocols’
When the ABC asked Tasmania Police if it wrote to the regulator about its legal advice and why it did so, it did not directly answer but pointed to the resulting legislative changes, saying it would “recommence referrals under the Reportable Conduct Scheme” from April 1.
“Tasmania Police is committed to being a child safe organisation and this includes having the reporting and oversight procedures in place to appropriately respond to any suspicion of harm to a child or young person,”
it said.
Tasmania Police said it had been reviewing its procedures when it got legal advice that it was not an “entity” under the mandatory reporting act. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
When the ABC asked its questions again, Tasmania Police said its “legal advice determined Tasmania Police were not an entity for the purposes of the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act 2023, and, as such, not able to provision certain information to the OIR”.
“Tasmania Police had been undertaking a review of its procedures under the act, and developing protocols in relation to disclosure of information for the purpose of the Reportable Conduct Scheme in part 4 of the act”.
Sectors with most child safety notifications
Since Australia’s Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in 2017, most states have now adopted reportable conduct schemes which obligate leaders of certain organisations to report concerns of child sexual abuse involving a staff member.
The inquiry’s final report stated police officers were among a “wide range of organisations” that must comply with mandatory reporting.
Like in the federal royal commission, Tasmanian institutions and the government were found to have failed to properly respond to allegations and incidents of child abuse.
Tasmania’s regulator received 567 notifications of potential misconduct in the 2024-25 financial year, an increase from 9 to 12 per week from the year before.
The regulator received notifications of potential misconduct at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in 2024-25. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Thirty-four of those reports were substantiated, according to the regulator’s annual report — with some alleged victims in multiple notifications.
A total of 452 were still open at the end of the reporting year.
A third of total notifications came from the education sector, with 189 notifications made to the regulator.
There were 133 from child protection services and out-of-home care — with data suggesting 16 per cent of children and youth in out-of-home care were alleged victims in a reportable conduct notification.
Meanwhile, data suggested 47 per cent of young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre were alleged victims in a notification.
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