Yes, a reportable offender can work in Queensland, but not in any job the law calls regulated employment. A person subject to offender reporting obligations is a disqualified person under section 17(b)(i) of the Working with Children Check Act 2000 (Qld). A disqualified person cannot be issued a blue card (Blue Card Services must refuse the application under s 228), and it is an offence to start or continue in regulated employment without one (s 176A). Because being a disqualified person is an aggravating circumstance, the maximum penalty is 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment. The employer commits a separate offence (s 175), and the ordinary short-term exemptions are closed to you too (s 176J). Outside that boundary you are free to work, but every job must be reported to police within 7 days, and contact with a child through work within 24 hours, under the Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Act 2004. Figures are as at 8 September 2026 (WWC Check Act reprint current at 1 July 2026; CPOROPO Act reprint current at 1 April 2026).
This article deals with the employment consequence of being a reportable offender. If you are wondering whether you are one, or for how long, start with our reportable offender explainer.
Which jobs are off limits? What “regulated employment” means
Regulated employment is any employment of a type listed in schedule 1, part 1 of the Working with Children Check Act 2000 (s 156(1)). The list is long, and it is built around the usual functions of the job rather than the job title. The categories are:
- residential facilities and funded child accommodation (sch 1, s 1)
- school boarding facilities, and school employees other than approved teachers (ss 2 and 3)
- education and care services, child care and similar commercial services, including babysitting and nanny services (ss 4 and 4A)
- youth justice and detention services (s 4B)
- churches, clubs and associations whose services or activities are directed mainly towards children (s 5)
- health, counselling and support services to children (s 6)
- disability work (s 6A)
- private teaching, coaching and tutoring (s 7)
- education programs conducted outside school (s 8)
- child accommodation services such as homestay (s 9)
- religious representatives (s 10)
- sport, active recreation, gyms and play facilities (s 11)
- entertainment, beauty and photography services (s 11A)
- emergency services cadet programs and school crossing supervisors (ss 12 and 13)
- care of children under the Child Protection Act 1999 (s 14)
It should be noted that “employment” includes unpaid work. It therefore doesn’t matter whether the work is done voluntarily or for reward, or on one occasion or an ongoing basis (s 10(2)). For example, this could include a person engaged by a shopping centre to appear as Santa or a volunteer coaching a children’s sporting team for a season. In addition, carrying on a regulated business without a clearance is an offence punishable by 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment (s 176B).
What about a job where children are only some of the customers?
The Act draws the line with an “only or mainly” test in some categories and a “physical contact or alone with the child” test in others, and the difference between those two definitions means there are different types of work that are not restricted, even if children attend the business.
Health services are the clearest example (sch 1, s 6). A health service delivered at a health facility is regulated employment only if the facility’s services are provided only or mainly to children (a children’s hospital, a child health clinic), or if the employee’s own role involves providing services only or mainly to children (the Act’s examples are a person working only or mainly in a hospital’s paediatric section, and a person running child health screening at a community health facility). So an allied health practitioner in a general practice whose patients are mostly adults is not automatically in regulated employment.
A health service provided to a child other than at a health facility is regulated employment if it requires physical contact with the child (the Act gives massage as the example), or if the employee is physically present with the child while no one else is present (s 6(1)(b)). Counselling and support services to children are regulated whether or not the worker is physically present, which captures telephone and internet help lines (s 6(1)(c) and (d)).
The same reasoning applies to schools. Work in a school area accessible to children is regulated, unless the work is not directed towards children and its nature does not permit or facilitate contact beyond incidental contact (sch 1, s 3(2)(b)).
Can a reportable offender get a blue card?
No. A person subject to offender reporting obligations, an offender prohibition order, a disqualification order or a sexual offender order is a disqualified person (s 17(b)), and so is a person who is merely the respondent to an application for an offender prohibition order (s 17(c)). If Blue Card Services is aware an applicant is a disqualified person, it must refuse the application (s 228). Its own guidance states that a disqualified person who applies will be refused and given a negative notice, and cannot apply to cancel that negative notice (Queensland Government, Disqualified persons).
If you already hold a blue card when you become a reportable offender, the chief executive must cancel it (s 303(1) and (3)). Blue Card Services does not rely on you to tell them after your conviction: the Police Commissioner provides the information, including that the person is or has been a disqualified person and the details of any prohibition order (ss 312 and 313).
Being a former disqualified person is not a clean slate either. An application by someone who has been a disqualified person at any time, or who has ever been convicted of a serious offence, must also be refused (s 229), unless the conviction, sentence or order was set aside on appeal.
What happens if you work in regulated employment anyway?
It is an offence to start or continue in regulated employment without a working with children clearance (s 176A(1)). The base maximum penalty is 100 penalty units, but the maximum rises to 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment where an aggravating circumstance applies, and being a disqualified person is one of the listed aggravating circumstances (s 176A(2)(b)).
| Offence | Section | Maximum penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Starting or continuing in regulated employment without a clearance, as a disqualified person | s 176A(1) and (2)(b) | 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment |
| Carrying on a regulated business without a clearance | s 176B | 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment |
| Restricted person starting or continuing in restricted employment | s 176J(1) | 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment |
| Employer employing, or continuing to employ, a person in regulated employment without a clearance | s 175(1) | 100 penalty units; 200 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment with an aggravating circumstance |
| Employer employing a restricted person in restricted employment, knowing or where they ought reasonably to know | s 176I | 200 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment |
A Queensland penalty unit is $172.70 from 1 July 2026, so 500 penalty units is a maximum fine of $86,350.
Does the employer commit an offence too?
Yes. An employer must not employ, or continue to employ, a person in regulated employment unless the person holds a working with children clearance and the employer has notified the chief executive under s 173 (s 175(1)). The base maximum penalty for an employer is 100 penalty units, rising to 200 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment where the employer knows, or ought reasonably to know, that the employee holds a negative notice, or has been told by the chief executive that the employee’s clearance was cancelled (s 175(2)).
The word employ is wide. Under s 10 it covers any agreement for a person to carry out work, written or unwritten, paid or unpaid, for one occasion or on an ongoing basis. For example, a family member who arranges for a reportable offender to help out at a business that falls within schedule 1 is an employer for this purpose.
Short-term exemptions
The Act ordinarily carves out two types of work from regulated employment: work for no more than 7 days in a calendar year, and a parent volunteering with a service or activity that includes their own child (s 156(4)). For most people those carve-outs mean no blue card is needed for a one-off.
However, that exception does not apply to a restricted person. The exception for a restricted person is defined as restricted employment (s 176H), and a restricted person must not start or continue in it (s 176J(1)), with the same maximum of 500 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment. A restricted person includes a disqualified person who does not hold a working with children authority (s 176H, paragraph (c)). Employing a restricted person in restricted employment, knowing or where the employer ought reasonably to know, carries 200 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment (s 176I).
In practical terms, this means that a reportable offender cannot fill in as a volunteer at a children’s event for a single afternoon, and cannot rely on the parent-volunteer exemption at their own child’s club.
What if you have been charged but not convicted?
The restrictions start even before any conviction. A person who has been charged with a disqualifying offence, where the proceeding has not ended, is also a restricted person (s 176H, paragraph (d)), so the restricted employment prohibition above applies from the charge. If you have a working with children check application on foot when you are charged with a serious or disqualifying offence, the chief executive must withdraw it (s 199(1)), and the withdrawal notice must state that it is an offence to start or continue in restricted employment. Blue Card Services’ guidance is that an existing card is suspended when the holder is charged with a disqualifying offence.
This is one of the reasons early advice matters on a sexual offence or child exploitation material charge, because the employment consequences are immediate and do not wait for the outcome.
What do you have to tell police about your job?
Every reportable offender’s personal details include their employment. Schedule 2 of the CPOROPO Act requires, if the offender is employed, the nature of the employment, the name of any employer, and the address or locality of each usual place of employment (item 7), and details of any club or organisation the offender is an associate, employee, member or official of that has child members or runs activities children take part in (item 8).
The definitions are broad. Employment for a reportable offender includes working under a contract of employment, working as a self-employed person or subcontractor, volunteering for an organisation, working as a minister of religion or otherwise for a religious organisation, and practical training as part of a course (schedule 5 dictionary). A usual place of employment is any premises or locality where the offender works for at least 7 days, consecutive or not, in a one-year period.
A change in any of these details must be reported within 7 days after it happens (s 19A(1)(c)), or before leaving Queensland if that comes first. Failing to comply with a reporting obligation without a reasonable excuse is a crime carrying a maximum of 300 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment (s 50). The court must consider matters such as the offender’s age, any disability affecting their ability to understand the obligations, and whether the notice given to them was adequate (s 50(3)), and it is a defence that the person had not received notice, and was otherwise unaware, of the obligation (s 50(4)).
The 24-hour rule: contact with a child through work
Contact with a child through work can sometimes be reportable. A change relating to reportable contact between the offender and a child must be reported within 24 hours (s 19A(1)(a)), and the details required include the child’s name, address, age, the nature of the contact and any phone number or email address (schedule 2, item 6).
Reportable contact means physical contact, oral communication in person, by phone or online, or written communication including electronic (s 9A(1)), and expressly includes supervising or caring for any child, exchanging contact details, or attempting to befriend a child (s 9A(2)). It does not include contact incidental to daily life: for example, buying a newspaper from a shop where the attendant is a child, and buying takeaway from a shop with child employees (s 9A(3)). Incidental contact stops being incidental if it involves an attempt to befriend the child or establish further contact, or happens with a regularity, frequency or in a way that may reasonably be expected to build familiarity or trust beyond the incidental.
For a working reportable offender that means a job with child customers is not, of itself, reportable contact. A job that puts you in regular one-to-one dealings with the same child usually is, if they become familiar with you or trust you.
Can an offender prohibition order stop you working altogether?
Yes, in a stated kind of work. An offender prohibition order may prohibit the respondent from being in stated employment, or a stated kind of employment, whether paid or voluntary, that is likely to bring them into contact with children (s 13F(1)(e)). For example, this can include employment in a café in the vicinity of a school, and door-to-door sales or collecting. The order can also prohibit being in stated locations (e.g. within 200 metres of a school between 7am and 7pm on school days) and can require conditions such as a tracking device, a stated residence or psychological treatment (s 13FA). An order for an adult lasts 5 years (s 13G). Only the Police Commissioner can apply for one, and an order can be sought against a person whose reporting period has already ended, which we explain in the reportable offender explainer. Failing to comply with an order without a reasonable excuse is a crime carrying a maximum of 300 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment (s 67FA).
What this means in practice
- You can work, run a business and volunteer, but not in any schedule 1 category, and not even for a day under the short-term exemptions.
- You cannot hold a blue card, an existing one will be cancelled, and police tell Blue Card Services directly.
- Your employer can be liable for employing you if you’re restricted, so a job obtained without disclosure exposes them as well as you.
- Every job, including volunteer and self-employed work, is reported to police within 7 days; contact with a child through work may need to be reported within 24 hours.
- The restrictions on restricted employment begin at charge, not conviction.
If you have been charged with a sexual offence or a CEM offence, or you are a reportable offender with a question about a job, contact us for confidential advice on your situation, available 24/7 for urgent matters.
This article is general legal information, not advice about your situation.
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