Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Moira Deeming has blasted systemic child safety failures in Victoria, warning that ideologies that sexualise children are eroding basic safeguarding principles.

In a forceful speech to Victoria’s Legislative Council last Wednesday, Liberal MP Moira Deeming condemned what she labelled the “utterly broken” state of Victoria’s child safeguarding system — and blamed ideologies she says is eroding those safeguards by sexualising children.

Her comments followed reports of horrific abuse at multiple childcare centres across the state, including revelations that children — even infants — were being tested for sexually transmitted infections.

“What we are facing is not actually a one-off failure,” Deeming told her colleagues on Spring Street. “It is obviously the result of an absolutely and utterly broken safeguarding system. It has been weakened by delay, blinded by ideology and hollowed out by cowardice.”

Deeming delivered her remarks in response to a Greens-initiated motion to open a parliamentary inquiry into the safety of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in Victoria.

The Western Metropolitan Region MP did not oppose the inquiry outright but she criticised the decision to delay immediate action in favour of another round of bureaucratic deliberation.

“I have to say that I am pretty disgusted that the political response to children being raped in child care in my region is just another inquiry…  instead of actually legislating to protect children,” she said.

Delays Amid Known Dangers

In her remarks, Deeming excoriated the Allan Labor government for its longstanding failure to act on known weaknesses in child safety policy.

She highlighted that seven major inquiries over the past 12 years — including the Betrayal of Trust report (2013), the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017), and the 2022 Ombudsman’s review — have made “the same core recommendations” no fewer than 37 times.

Yet, Deeming argued, those action points remain largely ignored.

“Most of these recommendations are just sitting on ministerial shelves,” she said. “And here we are again discussing early childhood safety — not because the answers are unknown — but because this government just has refused to legislate them.”

Citing a 2022 finding by the Victorian Ombudsman that the state’s working with children check system was among the weakest in the nation, Deeming warned that serious offenders were able to retain valid clearances while working with young children.

She named two such individuals — Joshua Brown and Ron Marks — whose access to children, despite red flags and their eventual conviction for serious crimes, has become emblematic of the broader crisis.

Deeming also pointed to Labor’s stringent COVID-19 response as evidence the party can act decisively when it is committed to a cause.

“We all saw exactly what this government can get done when they put their mind to it during COVID,” she said. “When they want to use the powers of government to get things done snappy-like, they do.”

Ideology Over Innocence

Deeming pointed beyond administrative failure to a deeper issue: a shift in the ideological framework underpinning child protection.

She questioned whether the Victorian government still recognised children as inherently vulnerable and non-sexual — or whether radical academic theories were now shaping policy in a way that erodes fundamental safeguarding principles.

“Aren’t we all outraged here today because we know that by definition children are pre-sexual, nonsexual, unable to consent or to understand sex, vulnerable to exploitation and coercion?” she asked.

She went on to cite the influence of controversial scholars such as Gary Dowsett and Steven Angelides, whose writings on “the sexual rights of children” and the supposed “normalisation” of childhood sexual desires have appeared in resources linked to the Safe Schools program and La Trobe University’s “inclusive education” materials.

“Despite these citations,” Deeming said, “no Victorian department or child safety body has publicly critiqued the ideological implications of referencing authors who argue for something called ‘the sexual agency of children’.”

She argued that treating children as autonomous sexual beings dangerously redefines the very concept of safeguarding, exposing them to greater harm rather than shielding them from it.

Policies That Raise Alarm

Deeming also highlighted specific Victorian laws and policies that she believes further expose children to risk.

Among them was the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022, which she argued prohibits clinicians from diagnosing paedophilic attraction as a mental disorder — even when patients display clear danger signs.

“That means if a clinician has a patient with a self-proclaimed paedophilic preference and a known pattern for acting on it, they cannot diagnose that person with a red flag that would preclude them from working with vulnerable children,” she said. “It is ridiculous.”

Another example she cited was the legal allowance for children in commercial brothels — with no age restriction in home brothels and a limit of 18 months in others — a policy she said is an abandonment of basic protective standards.

In a speech peppered with blunt assessments and pointed warnings, Deeming kept returning to a single demand: action. She insisted that Victoria does not need another inquiry to tell it what it already knows.

“We do not need any more inquiries. We know perfectly well what is going on, and it is an absolutely epic disgrace.”

Deeming closed with a strong caution: unless Parliament urgently reforms safeguarding laws and rejects ideological redefinitions of childhood, Victoria will produce yet another generation of harmed and failed children.

“There is going to be another round of apologising to the next generation of children who, under your watch, have been terribly abused and then victimised again and blamed for it because of this redefinition of what a child is.”

The broader inquiry, proposed by Greens MP Anasina Gray-Barberio, also aims to investigate oversight, staff training, the privatised childcare model, and workforce conditions.

The select committee, if established, would report back by July 2026.