Working with Children checks: Cards are revoked, suspended or cancelled daily across Australia

Australians are being lulled into a false sense of security, with criminals getting too close to children every day. See where it’s happening.

Exclusive: Organisations are going high tech to plug the gaps that expose Australian children to paedophiles and abuse.

A private technology company, Oho, is using its cloud-based software to monitor accreditation of employees and volunteers across child, health and aged care, sports, disability services, education and religious organisations.

A shocking number of Working With Children cards are revoked, suspended or cancelled every day in almost every state and territory in Australia.

That one every day in Victoria, up to three a day in NSW, one every working day in Queensland, and one every three days in Western Australia.

Oho works by ditching antiquated spreadsheets and labour intensive paper-based records by digitising and automating the process with a continuous verification of employees and volunteers.

Everyday Working With Children cards are revoked throughout Australia.

Most organisations don’t carry out safety checks beyond the initial hiring process - and Oho Executive Director Claire Rogers revealed clients usually had inaccurate data in as much as 90 per cent of their workforce.

“Of 50 active customers in the last two months, we know of at least four red flags that have resulted in the removal of people from access to children or the vulnerable.”

A common gap Oho protected clients from was in linking errors on an employee’s details.

Every person with a Working With Children card is supposed to be linked to their organisation in the WWC register, but it’s the employees job to do that.

Many organisations that work with children don’t check the status of WWC cards after a person is hired. Picture: istock

“So you can join an organisation, do your linking [to them] and a couple weeks later remove the job”.

That means the organisation won’t be notified if the card was paused or revoked.

Oho alerts a client if the linking was missing.

Ms Rogers said for many organisations it was a “wake up call” to discover they had been lulled into a false sense of security.

“There’s this huge disconnect between the expectations of the community and what’s actually happening,” she said.

“I liken it to having a house full of precious things but you’ve got no alarm system or security system,” Ms Rogers said.

“Just looking at someone’s WWC card does not mean it’s valid check...and they’re not checking regularly, afterwards. So it’s like having precious things in a house but no alarm system - and what can be more precious than children?”

She said money and resources was poured into protecting our finances and to make sure money was lent to people who weren’t responsible, but the same rigour was not applied to caring for children.

Oho Executive Director Claire Rogers says many organisations are shocked when they discover they aren't as secure as they thought they were.

Ms Rogers pointed to a disability organisation that had a worker have their card revoked - but a letter informing them was somehow lost.

“And there was a period of six months so someone was still able to work in that organisation... we should know there’s a status change so the organisation can respond to it, and then investigate what the circumstances really, really quickly.”

Peter Lusk, CEO of Southern Cross Kids Camps, said a lack of a national approach “created some problems” so they used Oho because they wanted to be “really diligent” about who they worked with.

He was stunned people could remove their linking from an organisation “and we might never get notified”.

Peter Lusk from Southern Cross Kid's Camps. Picture: Supplied

Mr Lusk said he had lobbied politicians for years for a national system, but Oho made the process easier.

“It’s a good use of technology and for us as an organisation and helps give an appropriate level of surety.”

These are some of what is being detected.

A recent case in NSW involved a man, known by the pseudonym EJA, who had his WWC card revoked in 2020 - three years after he plead guilty to domestic violence charges.

A WWC check was granted to a Victorian man in 2011 and in 2017 he was charged with unlawful assault and behaving in an indecent manner after he confronted a woman in a toilet cubicle while heavily drunk. The assault charge was eventually withdrawn, and he plead guilty to behaving in an offensive manner - and was allowed to keep his WWC check.

In Queensland, a 52 year old teacher, who can be identified only as CSK, had his card allowing him to work with children withdrawn - after he had become a state school principal.

The card was withdrawn after Queensland authorities learned of charges of having sex with a minor had been withdrawn against the man in the NT in the 1990s.

In South Australia, a man known as GJC, sought to have his WWC card reinstated so he could continue work as a tennis coach.

He was charged over allegedly phoning and texting a young girl he had been tutoring, where she alleged the calls were of a sexual nature, but the charges were later dropped by prosecutors.

GJC claimed he was communicating with he over money he claimed she had stolen from him, but the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal later found he posed an unacceptable risk to children.

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