You might be considering starting a charity. That’s fantastic – charities have a huge impact on the public, provide help to people in need and build stronger communities. Many people look at the work that is being done (or not done) by charities and want to start their own.
Here’s some things to consider before you get the ball rolling.
Purpose is at the core of the charitable sector. The purpose of an organisation is the reason why it exists, or its mission. Everything – including a charity’s funding, government recognition and activities – flows from its purpose. If you want to start a charity, you should have a clear purpose, and the ability to articulate your vision, goals and success markers.
The best purpose statements are usually brief and broad. For example:
Don’t worry about formalising the language – lawyers and consultants can help with that – just articulate what you want to achieve.
With over 50 000 registered charities – not including the estimated 550 000 not-for-profit organisations that are not registered charities – there is a good chance an existing charity has a similar purpose to your proposed new charity. A little research on the ACNC Charity Register will help you assess whether you will be duplicating existing services or competing for limited funds against an established charity.
Given the establishment costs and the ongoing administrative burden of maintaining a charity, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Consider whether your resources might be better used to support an existing organisation.
That said, one of the strengths of this sector is its diversity and ability to provide tailored, local and unique responses to a broad range of social needs. We help new charities get established all the time that are working with overlooked individuals, meeting an unmet need or have an innovative way to achieve their purpose. If you’ve assessed existing offerings and have a unique value proposition, then keep reading.
Your organisation’s eligibility for tax concessions will depend mainly on its purpose.
Only organisations that have charitable purposes can register as charities with the ACNC and receive charitable tax concessions. The Charities Act 2013 (Cth) lists charitable purposes, including advancing health, education, social or public welfare and religion.
Some charitable purposes, but not all (as well as some non-charitable purposes), also allow organisations to receive tax deductible donations from the public. This is valuable, as it improves your ability to attract donations and may also enable you to access certain government or philanthropic grants.
Even if your purpose isn’t charitable, some ”mere” not-for-profits can still access income tax exemption and other tax concessions.
The legal structure of a charity may seem a bit dull, but it has implications for how your charity is governed, its activities and who it reports to.
Broadly, charity structures fall into two groups – corporate entities (e.g companies or associations) and fundraising entities (i.e trusts and funds).
You have a great idea, a clear purpose, a unique value proposition and an idea of how to start – but without money, none of this will happen. All new organisations need to plan both their initial and ongoing funding. Depending on the size of your proposed operation it might be worth investing in expert strategic and business planning to understand what funding is available and how you can access it.
Traditionally, charities have relied on government, donations from individuals, corporate sponsorship and fundraising to keep the doors open. As these funding pools become more competitive, some charities are using commercial activities and social enterprises to fund their work.
Be realistic about what it will cost to start your charity, assess your funding sources and develop a plan to raise the necessary funds that will sustain your organisation beyond the start-up phase.
Planning ahead and asking the hard questions early will set up your charity for success. Expert advice can help you to understand the tax concessions and endorsements you may be eligible for, avoid making extensive and complicated changes to your structure down the track and develop a realistic strategic and business plan for your charity.
Moores is one of only a few legal practices with a team dedicated to providing specialist advice to charities and not-for-profits. We provide strategic advice on establishment, governance, structuring and tax to clients from all over the charitable sector – including disability services, educational institutions, faith-based bodies and overseas aid organisations.
If you have a purpose to pursue, we’re here to help. Please do not hesitate to contact us.
Please contact us for more detailed and tailored help.
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See Part 2 – Charity Tax Concession here
See Part 3 – Choosing the Right Structure here
Safer Internet Day 2023 is fast approaching. On 7 February 2023, Australians will be encouraged to “connect, reflect and protect” for the sake of making the internet a safer space for everyone. Why is this important for your charity or school?
Safer Internet Day is an opportunity for your school or charity to:
Hybrid is the new norm. Services are increasingly being provided online. Data breaches are gaining greater publicity and a more significant reputational impact. The online environment is becoming more hostile. There are many reasons why societal expectations of online safety and privacy are shifting.
Understanding these risks faced online by vulnerable Australians, it is no surprise there are increasing expectations from parents and the community as to what measures organisations are taking to keep children safe online. In our webinar on 8 February 2023, we will discuss some case studies and what you can do to keep children safe online.
The 2022 update to the Victorian Child Safe Standards (and for schools, Ministerial Order 1359) includes new requirements for how organisations manage the risk of child abuse in online environments. See Child Safe Standard 9.
Cyber threats and data breaches are almost inevitable. In the 2020–21 financial year, the Australian Cyber Security Centre received over 67,500 cybercrime reports, an increase of nearly 13% from the previous financial year.
For a charity or not-for-profit, failing to take appropriate action to secure data could mean:
Our safeguarding, education and privacy teams can offer training and provide tailored internal resources to empower staff to understand risks facing children and organisations online, and how to handle incidents when things do go wrong.
Come to our webinar to learn more about how you can support the charities or school you are a part of to connect, reflect and protect. Read here our top tips for ensuring online safety and data security for charities.
1 – eSafety Commissioner, Mind the Gap (2022) 2 – eSafety Commissioner Digital lives of Aussie teens, 2021 3 – Online hate speech, 2020.
The significant increase in data breaches across Australia has fuelled a tension between data retention and data minimisation, prompting many organisations to question and justify the records they retain. In a child safety context, the considerations are particularly complex.
Organisations working with children can look to the five Recordkeeping Principles published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. However, the Recordkeeping Principles don’t provide comprehensive guidance on how the Principles should be interpreted in light of privacy law and the obligation to destroy personal information that is no longer needed. This begs the question, how should organisations that work with children navigate this tension between data retention and data minimisation?
The Royal Commission’s Recordkeeping Principles are as follows:
The Royal Commission recommended that institutions engaging in child-related work retain, for at least 45 years, records relating to child sexual abuse that has occurred or is alleged to have occurred. This is to allow for delayed disclosure of abuse by victims and to take account of limitation periods for civil actions for child sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, Australian Privacy Principle (APP) 11.2 says that if:
Finally, the Public Records Office Victoria (PROV) has a Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of Organisational Response to Child Sexual Abuse Incidents and Allegations, which has specific timeframes for records about child sexual abuse. All schools in Victoria must comply with PROV under MO1359, and other organisations receiving state funding may be required to comply with PROV under their funding agreement.
If your organisation is required to retain documents under PROV, then you need to retain the document for a compliance purpose, meaning you can reconcile APP 11.2 and PROV.
But in the absence of strict legal requirements for what you retain or destroy a child safety record, what should you do?
While the answer may vary between organisations having regard to their operations, risks and record keeping practices, we recommend that organisations adopt a carefully drafted retention and destruction policy which contains the ability to perform risk-based assessments.
There are a number of important considerations when balancing risks, including the following:
Moores can help you navigate this complicated space, and unearth how these laws and other guidance and policy documents apply to your organisation specifically. We can help you:
For more information on how to navigate this area, please contact our safeguarding team.
Wage Inspectorate Victoria (the Inspectorate) has laid Australia’s first criminal wage theft charges under the Wage Theft Act 2020 (Vic) (Act). The Act, which has been in operation in Victoria since 1 July 2021, imposes a number of wage theft offences on Victorian employers and their officers.
Section 6 of the Act makes it unlawful for employers in Victoria to dishonestly underpay employees or withhold their entitlements. An underpayment or withholding of entitlements will not be considered dishonest for the purpose of this section if due diligence is exercised to pay and attribute entitlements to employees.
The Act empowers the Inspectorate to investigate and commence proceedings into possible employee entitlement offences. The commission of an offence under section 6 of the Act (among other offences in the Act) may lead to liability up to:
On 29 November 2022, the Inspectorate announced it had filed 94 criminal charges in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria against a Macedon restaurant and its officer. The Inspectorate’s full announcement can be found here.
The relevant employer and its officer allegedly breached section 6 of the Act between July and November 2021 by dishonestly withholding over $7,000 in employee entitlements, including wages, penalty rates and superannuation, from four young former staff members.
It is expected that more prosecutions will follow as the Inspectorate completes investigations that take many months, if not years, to finalise before charges can be laid.
How and who the Inspectorate focuses on should be of interest to Victorian employers who are now covered by federal workplace legislation, which imposes civil penalties, and Victorian legislation which imposes criminal penalties, for the same conduct.
Victorian employers are reminded about their obligations to proactively manage compliance with their employment obligations including federal awards and enterprise agreements. The Act provides for some defences for employers who have exercised due diligence to ensure compliance. Some steps for due diligence include:
Our workplace relations team can assist you to:
On 2 December 2022, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 (Cth) passed both houses of Parliament and is now law. Many of the changes will impact a range of workplaces.
One of those changes is the regulation of fixed term contracts. This will be a new set of statutory requirements which may catch a few employers off guard. In a last-minute reprieve, Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Burke, confirmed this week that those fixed term rules will not commence for 12 months. The rules will commence on 7 December 2023 (day after 12 months following royal assent). This gives employers time to get their contractual arrangements in order to ensure compliance.
The new provisions make it an offence, subject to some exceptions, for an employer to enter into a fixed term contract with an employee:
Additionally, it will be an offence for an employer to take any action for the purpose of avoiding any of the limitations listed above.
There are a range of exceptions to the rules above including where:
If an employer enters into a fixed term contract with an employee that contravenes any of the limitations listed above:
In effect, the contract will be an ongoing contract which is subject to the usual termination rules in any applicable industrial instrument and legislation. Remedies such as those available through the unfair dismissal framework in the legislation could also be available.
If fixed term contracts are part of the employment arrangements with some or all employees, employers are on notice that some arrangements may not be permitted once the rules take effect. Now is the time to review and assess if exceptions will apply that permit the ongoing use of fixed term contracts or whether those arrangements will need to be transitioned sooner rather than later.
Any option will need to be considered carefully alongside the terms of any applicable modern award(s) that covers affected employees (among any other applicable exceptions listed above) and tailored to the operational needs of employers.
Our Workplace Relations team can assist you to review your existing fixed term contracts of employment and develop a pathway forward before the relevant legislative changes take effect, including by preparing new contracts of employment for affected employees.
Earlier this month, the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022 (Act) was passed, making significant changes to sexual harassment laws under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (SD Act).
The changes were made in line with the 55 recommendations from the report (Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report (2020)) that arose from a national inquiry into sexual harassment in 2018. The recommendations aim to help reduce the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment.
This legislation complements enhanced protections against sexual harassment which formed part of the recently enacted Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022 (Cth) which are summarised here.
The most significant changes to the SD Act are:
Under the changes to the SD Act, employers or a PCBU will now need to ensure they take ‘reasonable and proportionate’ measures to eliminate, as far as possible, conduct that includes sexual harassment, sex discrimination and victimisation.
When determining whether the positive duty has been discharged, the following factors will be considered:
The positive duty will mean that both employers and PCBUs will be required to not just respond to conduct brought to their attention, but also put in place measures that will proactively prevent such conduct from occurring to begin with.
Amendments have been made to allow the AHRC to monitor and address employer and PCBU compliance with the newly implemented positive duty. This will now allow the AHRC to:
The SD Act will now make it expressly unlawful for a person to subject another person to a workplace environment that is hostile on the grounds of sex.
The test to determine this will be:
The changes remove from the definition of ‘harassment on the grounds of sex’, the requirement for the alleged wrongdoer to have engaged in unwelcome conduct of a ‘seriously demeaning’ nature. This now means that the conduct is only required to be considered of a ‘demeaning nature’ rather than having to satisfy the additional limb that had been required before the changes.
The Act has also made amendments to all Commonwealth anti-discrimination acts to clarify that victimising conduct can now form the basis of a civil action for unlawful discrimination (in addition to a criminal complaint).
The Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth) (AD Act), the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DD Act) and the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RD Act) have now been amended to clarify that victimisation can now form the basis of both civil unlawful discrimination and as a criminal offence under the SD Act.
This amendment is in line with the amendments made in 2021 by the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Act 2021 (Cth), which also made the same amendments to the SD Act and the AHRC Act.
Previously, under the AD Act, DD Act and RD Act, the AHRC has the discretion to terminate complaints made more than six months after the alleged unlawful conduct took place. However, this has now been changed to 24 months since the unlawful conduct took place.
The changes require employers to take action, even if to check their existing policy and training frameworks to ensure they discharge the new positive duty. Some tips for employers include:
Moores can help you to identify the necessary steps to ensure your organisation is compliant with the new amendments. This includes updating policies, providing internal training to staff and assisting with internal investigations into misconduct.
Get in touch with the Workplace Relations team at Moores if you or your organisation need any assistance with these matters.
In the recent decision of Serpanos v Commonwealth of Australia [2022] FCA 1226, the Federal Court (Court) has usefully analysed conflicting judicial approaches to assess an employer’s motives, and the discharging of proof under section 361 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (Act), relevant to adverse action matters.
The decision provides important guidance about which ‘person’ or ‘persons’ actions and decisions are relevant for a dismissal decision.
In the case, the Court had to determine whether Mr Serpanos’s employer, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), had engaged in adverse action when it dismissed his employment in 2019.
The application was made after the following events, amongst others:
The Court ultimately had to consider whether the dismissal of Mr Serpanos was at all due to him making complaints about ‘defamatory’ claims against a number of his colleagues. The ATO contended that the dismissal was on the basis of Mr Serpanos engaging in serious misconduct including sexual harassment, harassment and other breaches of the Code of Conduct on the basis of findings of an internal investigation.
Section 361(1) of the Act contains a provision that places the onus of disproving an allegation of a breach of the adverse action upon the entity or person alleged to have breached them.
In light of section 361(1) of the Act, the Court has to assume that Mr Serpanos was dismissed for a prohibited reason, unless the ATO could prove otherwise. The Court stated:
“The ATO must positively establish that [the auditor’s] exercise of a workplace right or workplace rights did not factor in any substantial or operative way as a reason for its decision to effect his dismissal.”
In examining section 361(1) of the Act, Justice Snaden noted the inconsistencies between previous decisions in interpreting the section and how an employer might rebut the presumption. In doing so, Justice Snaden focused on the issue as to whether the reasons for which ‘adverse action’ is taken might be “unconscious” or discerned otherwise than through interrogation of the mental processes of the person or people by whose conduct it is taken.
His Honour noted the following:
In assessing both approaches, Justice Snaden stated the approach that emerged from Barclay did not reconcile with Kodak (because they differed in respect of the significance of considering what is in the minds of the decision maker(s)) and ‘one of the propositions must be wrong’.
Justice Snaden found that recent “and presently binding” authorities suggested the approach taken in Kodak was the preferred. This included Wong v National Australia Bank Limited3, which clearly articulated the Kodak approach” (emphasis added):
“…It may be convenient to refer to the person whose conduct directly visited the adverse action on the employee as the “decision-maker” but his or her decision-making process may incorporate the state of mind of other people, including by adopting facts or opinions asserted by them.”
His Honour also stated that searching for the reasons for “animating particular conduct – especially corporate conduct” can be “notoriously difficult”. While section 340 of the Act alludes to the assessment of the state of mind of the person who engages in the conduct, that is ‘not the law as it currently stands’ (emphasis added):
“The case law emerging from this court, even after Barclay, BHP Coal, Endeavour Coal and Hall leaves no room for doubt: in assessing the reasons for which conduct amounting to adverse action was engaged in, the court must interrogate not merely the state or states of mind of the person or people who engaged in it; but also, that of others whose contribution to that conduct rose beyond some threshold level.”
Justice Snaden went on to comment that the ‘threshold level’ for when determining whether a particular “mind” has a ”’significant’, ‘plainly important’, ‘major’, ‘substantial’ or ‘essential’” impact on alleged action engaged in.
Justice Snaden explained that a respondent may rebut the statutory presumption under section 361(1) of the Act by producing evidence as to why it engaged in the conduct that an applicant seeks to impugn. It is then for the Court to determine whether the reasons that the respondent presents actuated that conduct.
In assessing the reasons for the conduct, the Court does not have to determine whether they are ‘procedurally or substantially fair’ but rather that they were in fact the reason that animated the conduct.
Justice Snaden stated that to determine this, the inquiry occurs “in two parts”. The questions that the Court must ask are:
If the Court determined that the answer to both questions is yes and there are other reasons for which the conduct was engaged in, it is irrelevant whether the respondent’s reasons might be impugned as unfair or illogical or otherwise liable to criticism. However, Justice Snaden clarified that if the manner in which the respondents acted is substantively or procedurally unfair, that may still be a relevant consideration.
In determining whether the ATO had engaged in adverse action, the Court had to determine the reason for dismissal. In doing so, the Court had to identify whose mind or minds that “contributed to the making of that decision in a way or ways that qualify as ‘significant’, ‘plainly important’, ‘major’, ‘substantial’ or ‘essential’” Once determined, those ‘minds’ would need to ‘demonstrate that their conduct also was not actuated by a reason or reasons prohibited by s340(1)(a) of the Act’.
His Honour found that both the Assistant Commissioner and the Acting Assistant Director were the ‘minds’ that led to the decision to terminate Mr Serpanos’ employment.
In justifying her findings, the Acting Assistant Director explained to the Court that she was satisfied that Mr Serpanos had engaged in the instances of sexual misconduct from the evidence presented to her and that his defamation action (and threatened action) against his colleagues was solely ‘vexatious’ and ‘unreasonable’ amounting to harassment. On the basis of these findings, the Assistant Commissioner explained that the termination of Mr Serpanos was the only appropriate outcome given it was a breach of the Code of Conduct.
On the basis of the evidence provided to him, Justice Snaden determined that:
Justice Snaden determined that neither the Acting Assistant Director or Assistant Commissioner ‘actuated to engage in any conduct relevant to the dismissal because, or for reasons that included that, Mr Serpanos had complained about having been defamed’. Ultimately the ATO was found to not have been in breach of section 340 of the Act.
However, in his decision, Justice Snaden noted that the “failings” of the Acting Assistant Director’s investigation “should be remarked upon”. These failings included the Acting Assistant Director’s failure to put forward Mr Serpanos’ complaints to the relevant employees and canvassing evidence from ‘a wider field of witnesses than she did’.
Disciplinary action decisions are often complex, multi-faceted and involve multiple people, particularly in larger organisations. The case shows that a ‘decision’ may be made by more than just the named decision maker. Unlawful motivations that actuate a decision can result in a contravention of the adverse action protections in the Act, even if not held by all those involved in the decision. It is important to seek legal advice for those decision making processes and identify ways in which legal risk can be mitigated.
For assistance with your organisation’s disciplinary processes, please reach out to our Workplace Relations team. Our team is well equipped to provide advice on your obligations and reviews of your internal policies and procedures.
1 – [2012] HCA 32.2 – [2001] FCA 1804.3 – [2022] FCAFC 155.
Where an individual who holds a controlling role in a trust loses decision-making capacity, there can be serious implications for the day-to-day management and succession of the trust, especially where the individual is the sole trustee or sole director of a Corporate Trustee.
The result can be a trust with no “driver at the wheel” and no option but to make an application to the Supreme Court to address the situation – an expensive solution that can often be avoided with proper planning for incapacity as part of a comprehensive estate plan.
The persons holding controlling roles in trusts are important and have different duties. These roles can be filled by companies or individuals.
The controlling roles in a trust usually are:
Trust deeds – particularly older ones – usually say how control of the trust is passed when a sole trustee dies, but often do not consider what happens when a sole trustee loses decision-making capacity.
It is common in discretionary trusts for a sole trustee to also hold the power to appoint a new or additional trustee in a Trust Deed, or for the trustee and appointor to be the same person. As a trustee must act personally and cannot delegate their responsibilities to others, then depending on the trust deed, this may mean the incapacitated trustee’s attorney has no power to remove the incapacitated trustee and appoint a replacement one.
While section 28 of the Trustee Act 1958 (Vic) (Trustee Act) does permit the appointment of an agent “to transact any business or to do any act required to be transacted or done in the execution of a trust”, this is not generally regarded as extending to an attorney being able to exercise the power to appoint or remove a trustee and is often insufficient, on its own, to allow an attorney to make day-to-day decisions about the trust’s management.
Where a trustee is “unfit to act”, section 41 of the Trustee Act allows the appointor or any continuing trustees or the personal representative of the last surviving trustee to appoint a new trustee. However, the definition of “personal representative” does not extend to an attorney of a person who is alive but is incapacitated. Therefore, if the incapacitated person is the trustee and appointor, there may be nothing their attorney can do to appoint a new trustee until the incapacitated trustee dies and their executor can exercise the power.
When there is no other way to remove an incapacitated trustee (which is increasingly common), the only option may be to make an application to the Supreme Court of Victoria to appoint a new trustee.
Section 48 of the Trustee Act gives the Court the power to appoint a new trustee in substitution for, or in addition to, any existing trustee/s when it is “expedient to do so” and it is “inexpedient, difficult or impracticable” to do so without the assistance of the Court. If the situation has arisen where a trustee has lost capacity and there is no other mechanism to appoint a new one, the Supreme Court will usually agree it is not appropriate for a trust to be left without a trustee and will provide assistance.
Where a company is the trustee, it is important to review its constitution and consider:
If a trustee company with a sole director loses decision-making capacity, then, subject to the provision of the company’s constitution, section 201F of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) allows the director’s personal representative to appoint a new director. Personal Representative can mean the sole director’s attorney. As such, should an individual who is the sole director of a trustee company have a validly appointed attorney, this attorney may be able to appoint a replacement director.
For existing trusts – it is critical that legal assistance is sought to review the trust deed and, subject to tax and duty considerations, the trust deed and/or constitution amended to account for the situation where a person in a controlling role loses capacity.
It may also be appropriate to consider whether special conditions need to be included in a financial power of attorney, or whether a deed of succession is required to appoint alternate trustees upon incapacity.
For new trusts – it is critical that the trust deed provides a mechanism for what happens if a trustee loses decision making capacity.
Consideration of what will occur upon the loss of capacity of a trustee (or controller of a trustee) plays a vital role in a comprehensive estate plan. If care is not taken to address this issue, then even the best laid estate plans could be unravelled by the time the trustee dies.
Safeguarding risks are often identified too late, trapping organisations in a pattern of responding to risks rather than preventing harm from occurring.
Ansvar, a leading insurance provider and trusted partner of Moores, is trying to change that. Stephen Ratcliffe, one of Ansvar’s Senior Enterprise Risk Consultants, recently published guidance on the key gaps in safeguarding practice. A link to this publication can be found here.
The seven key safeguarding gaps identified by Ansvar are summarised as follows.
The good news is that these safeguarding gaps are preventable and easy to address.
Ansvar has published a range of helpful resources that may assist you to evaluate your safeguarding framework so that you understand your gaps in policy and practice and how to fix them. Those resources can be found using the following links.
Ansvar is a trusted partner of Moores and one of the few insurers that provides coverage for physical injury and sexual abuse in care services. For information about their expertise in care services, please visit their website or email info@ansvarrisk.com.au.
Organisations working with children should ensure that they have sufficient systems and processes in place to equip staff to identify, prevent and manage safeguarding risk and harm.
Our safeguarding team can assist you to review your current framework, identify gaps and take steps towards preparing and implementing systems and processes that are tailored to your organisation.
Complaints about cyberbullying to the eSafety Commission (Commission) are on the rise, particularly since the pandemic. This trend was highlighted in the Commission’s recent ‘Mind the Gap – parental awareness of children’s exposure to risks online’ report (the Report), which explores the ‘opportunities and risks that the internet presents for children in Australia’.1
With the pandemic forcing people to change the way they communicate, work and learn, society’s reliance on technology has increased and this has greatly impacted the amount of time that young children are spending in the digital world. Children now rely on technology in most parts of their daily lives, whether it is using technology to communicate with one another (e.g. through use of TikTok and Instagram), engage in recreational activities (e.g. playing internet games such as Fortnight) or to complete school or homework.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, rising levels of internet usage by children have increased the levels of cyberbullying seen by the Commission, with a 65% increase in the number of complaints about cyberbullying in 2021-22 compared to 2020-21.2
Research indicates that approximately one in five children experience some form of cyberbullying. Girls are bullied more than boys, and the average age of a target is 14.3
Concerningly, the Report found that despite the increased levels of cyberbullying, most children have ‘a positive view of the internet’,4 with an alarming 55% of children stating that they were communicating with someone they first met on the internet.5 Despite these figures, the Report did find that almost all children who were exposed to negative online experiences stated that when they were exposed, they did something in response (most commonly informing their parents about it).6
However, while approximately two thirds of children were confiding in their parents about negative online interactions, the Report paints a dire picture in the level of awareness that parents have about their children’s prevalence to negative online experiences.7 Although many parents have a strong awareness of children’s experiences of online harm,8 many were unaware of the extent to which their children are exposed to different types of harmful content.9 This disconnect shows there is more work to do to reach parents and strengthen their online safety skills.
While ‘parents are a key source of support for children navigating the digital world… more could be done to help support parents’ to help safeguard children and provide them with the knowledge to navigate the digital world.10 This includes support from organisations that work with children and parents to implement procedures that will support parents in protecting children from the risks of online usage, as it ‘takes a village’ to protect children from online harm.11
These trends highlight the importance of ensuring that families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing, including online safety, which is a requirement of the Victorian Child Safe Standards and National Principles for Child Safe Organisations.
There are some practical steps that organisations should take to support safety online and protect children from risk of harm.
Organisations working with children should consider specific risks to children facing harmful online exposure that are relevant to their organisation, and consider what measures they can put in place to mitigate these risks.
Organisations should consider providing training and information to staff, children and families on:
The Commission also recommends that schools:
The following resources may assist organisations to better understand online safety, and effectively engage with staff, children, families and communities:
For assistance with understanding safe online behaviours, and strategies to mitigate the risks of online harm, please get in touch with Moores’ Safeguarding team.
1 – eSafety Commission, Mind the Gap – Parental awareness of children’s exposure to risk online, February 2022.2 – Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commission, Strength in numbers to stop cyberbullying, 3 November 2022.3 – Ibid.4 – Above 1, 6.5 – Above 1, 7.6 – Above 1, 8.7 – Above 1, 52.8 – Above 1, 68.9 – Above 1, 69 – 72.10 – Above 1, 96.11 – Above 3.