Legislative Assembly 23 March 2022
Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (14:47): (6284) My question is for the Attorney-General.
I recently met with a constituent who had spent almost three months trying to get his working with children card renewed.
The card had expired on 14 December last year, and he had started trying to get it renewed in mid-November. The online system indicated that further information was required but unfortunately did not bother indicating what that further information was, so he had to resort to the telephone to try and move things on.
He called every day for three months but kept getting a recorded message saying to call back either later this day or the next business day.
Of course it is important to have a working with children check when required, but in this case it was also a prerequisite for membership of his local men’s shed, and consequently his membership of the men’s shed was in doubt.
Whatever arrangements it has been necessary to make to cope with the results of the pandemic, clearly they are not working. The government needs to resolve this problem of delays.
So my question to the minister is: why has this unacceptable situation arisen, and what is being done to fix it?