26 September 2023

The Commission of Inquiry’s Report into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings has now been tabled in Parliament.

The tabling and release of the report provides an opportunity for our agency to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past, and ensure we have the best systems in place to support victim-survivors, target and reduce sexual abuse crimes and our investigation processes going forward.

I want to acknowledge the people who chose to come forward and share their stories throughout this Inquiry, as well those who chose not to – as all of them show courage and bravery in their own personal journeys.

We are committed to reviewing the systems and processes we have in place, so we can improve our responses and ensure that people reporting sexual crimes are treated with dignity and their reports are appropriately investigated and managed.

Our agency has already begun the process of implementing change, including:

• significant changes to the Tasmania Police Manual to include very clear guidance and direction when dealing with child sexual abuse
• reviewing and refining Tasmania Police guidelines for investigating child sexual abuse. This will ensure information relevant to these investigations is consolidated into a single protocol for ease of reference by police
• strengthening relationships with partner agencies to enable more timely intervention for children at risk and provide better outcomes for victim-survivors
• improving sharing of information with key government agencies, including information regarding child safety to ensure appropriate responses and actions are undertaken when information relating to child sexual abuse is received
• implementing new mandatory family and sexual violence response training for police, which has been rolled out since January 2023
• The opening of two multidisciplinary Arch Centres to provide victim-survivors of sexual violence with coordinated wrap around supports.

However, this is not the end of the change and reform process for our agency.

The State Government has committed to fully implement all of the recommendations from the report. Over the coming weeks we will be reviewing the report in detail to identify the measures required from our Agency to ensure this commitment is met.

We will keep the community informed of this work as we progress.

Donna Adams PSM APM

Commissioner of Police
Tasmania Police