First National Action Plan
This content was initially created in 2022. Some information may no longer be current including titles of Ministers and Commonwealth Government Departments. You can find a list of current appointments on the Directory website.
The language we use has also changed from the initial terminology in the National Strategy. For a full list of the terminology we use, see our Glossary of terms page.
Themes
The First National Action Plan has 5 themes.
1. Awareness raising, education and building child safe cultures
2. Supporting and empowering victims and survivors
3. Enhancing national approaches to children with harmful sexual behaviour
4. Offender prevention and intervention
5. Improving the evidence base
Each measure under the First National Action Plan has been assigned to a main theme. Some measures are relevant to more than one theme. The links between and across the themes will be carefully considered during the National Strategy’s implementation.
The First National Action Plan focuses on responding to specific Royal Commission recommendations as well as the broad intent of the Royal Commission’s findings. We have also designed some measures to:
- apply best practice to implementing Royal Commission recommendations
- where appropriate, apply the intent of Royal Commission recommendations to child sexual abuse in all settings, rather than limiting reforms to child sexual abuse that happens in institutions
- set up an evidence base to evaluate measures
- support the design and implementation of future action plans.
You can find a full list of the Royal Commission’s recommendations on the Royal Commission website.
Each measure has an Australian Government department lead. State and territory government departments will work in partnership with the Australian Government on all measures.
Over the 4 years of the First National Action Plan, we will monitor our work on child sexual abuse to make sure we are meeting new challenges. We will do this as part of the monitoring and evaluation explained under the Monitoring and measuring progress heading on the Evaluation and reporting page.
Commitments
The Australian Government has committed $307.5 million to support the National Strategy’s implementation. This includes support for the First National Action Plan and the First Commonwealth Action Plan.
State and territory governments are responsible for funding, administering and delivering initiatives to protect children and young people. They are also responsible for responding to those experiencing, or at risk of, abuse and neglect. State and territory governments will support the First National Action Plan through continued efforts under existing areas of responsibility. They will also partner with the Australian Government to design and deliver the National Strategy’s First National Action Plan measures.