Labour hire firm faces child safety complaints

Queensland’s new mandatory reporting scheme received six complaints in its first month about one labour hire company that provides workers to residential housing for children in the care of the state.

The reporting scheme, run by the Queensland Family and Child Commission, was launched in July to allow suspicious behaviour in child protection, educational, early childhood and care services to be flagged.

Within a month of the scheme getting off the ground, it had received six complaints about workers from Edmen Community Staffing Solutions, a labour hire company that provided workers to various residential housing providers.

At the time, roughly 15 per cent of the complaints made had been about labour hire workers, highlighting the potential risk within the system of workers moving across the residential houses and organisations.

Edmen was recently sold to Healthcare Australia (HCA), officially rebranding in August, two weeks after the six cases had been flagged.

HCA did not respond to comment by deadline.

Conduct that must be reported includes concerns or allegations of child sexual offences, sexual misconduct in relation to or in the presence of a child, ill-treatment of a child, significant neglect, violence and behaviour that causes significant emotional or psychological harm to a child.

Child safety expert and head of the University of Queensland’s School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, Professor Karen Healy, said it was important to remember not all complaints are substantiated, but the concentration at Edmen could indicate a worrying trend.

“I think anywhere where you’ve got a high turnover of staff, you can increase the risk of people coming into the system who are unsuited to the role or who have motivations that may be improper,” she said.

Overall, Healy said she was supportive of the scheme, but said independence and procedural fairness had to come first to ensure people trusted the system.

“Any system to pick up misconduct will face challenges from highly motivated individuals who are seeking to engage in wrongdoing,” she said.

Last week, Attorney General Deb Frecklington said 666 complaints had been reported in the first 10-weeks of the scheme, with 39 people stripped of their Blue Cards, and 200 matters referred to the police.

Since the reportable conduct scheme came into effect, Blue Card Services have considered information received through the scheme as part of their risk assessment process, and can suspend blue cards where there appears to be an imminent risk.

A department of justice spokesperson said they could not comment directly about the matters involving Edmen, but said the scheme had strengthened the law.

Similarly, Queensland Family and Child Commission principal commissioner Luke Twyford said he would not comment about specifics, but he encouraged all organisations covered by the scheme to review their safeguards proactively.

“The value of the Reportable Conduct Scheme is not simply in receiving individual reports. It is in connecting those reports, identifying patterns and using that information to support earlier, more targeted safeguarding action,” he said.

A department of child safety spokesperson said all organisations subject to the scheme must ensure their workers have the necessary qualifications, skills, screening clearances, induction, training and supervision required, as well as report any suspicious conduct.

The child safety sector in Queensland has been in a state of flux, with a new super commission to launch in February next year to consume the QFCC and connect both the blue card system and the mandatory reporting scheme through an “intelligence hub”.

Dubbed the Child Protection Commission, it will receive $255 million over its first four financial years, and $74 million a year after that, with the hub up and running by March 2028.

Following a $20 million inquiry the government cut short, commissioner Paul Anastassiou slammed the state’s child safety system for repeatedly failing to fix issues that put children in danger.

“Perhaps the most striking feature of Queensland’s child protection system is that it has been interrogated, analysed and commented upon intensely over the last several decades,” Anastassiou wrote, noting the three other inquiries since 1999.

“And yet, despite the best endeavours of all concerned, individually and collectively, the child protection system continues to fail children and the community in serious respects.”

For more security, contact us on a non-work device and network via Signal (jdennis.05) or juliusdennis1@proton.me.

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