Some people will be excluded from the requirement to have a working with children check. For example, a person who has not, or believes on reasonable grounds that they will not, work with children on more than 7 days in a calendar year (consecutive or not and not including any overnight excursion or stay with any child or close personal contact with children with disability) will be excluded [s 9(3) and (4)]. As soon as a person works with children on more than 7 days (whether consecutive or not) in a calendar year, they cease to be an excluded person [s 9(3)].

Members of South Australia Police and the Australian Federal Police are also excluded [s 9((1)(c)]. As are emergency services workers (until 30 June 2022) by section 8B of the Children’s Protection Law Reform (Transitional Arrangements and Related Amendments) Act 2017 (SA) unless and until they become a prohibited person; they obtain a check or cease to be such a worker.

The regulations further provide that the following people are excluded [reg 9]:

In relation to the exclusion for parents and guardians, it is important to note that accommodation and residential services would include care provided to a child overnight and involving sleeping arrangements (whether on a short term or ongoing basis) and services provided in the course of an excursion or camp [reg 7]. Parents and guardians are not excluded from the requirement to have a check for the purposes of these services.

Close personal contact includes an act involving intimate bodily function such as using a toilet or an activity involving nudity, or exposure or partial exposure of the genitals, buttocks or breasts [reg 9(3)]. In any legal proceedings, the onus would be on the person claiming to be an excluded person, to prove that they are an excluded person [s 9(6)].