Safe Inc

04/10/2026

If the information is already out there, why are children still being missed?

Ruby O'Rourke's answer on ABC Radio Brisbane was one word: infrastructure. We build systems to manage risks like weather, terrorism and fraud. Children deserve the same.

Hear Ruby's full conversation with Mel Bampton from 1:40 to 1:50:
https://ap1.hubs.ly/H01pqX00

02/10/2026

In Australia, sports organisations as corporate entities or general clubs are not universally classified as mandatory reporters, but individual staff, specific criminal laws, and state-based Reportable Conduct Schemes do impose strict legal reporting duties."

That's Google's answer when you ask whether sports organisations must be mandatory reporters in Australia.
Clear as mud.

Australia has 73,000+ sports clubs, yet no single national standard for who in sport must report suspected child abuse.
Rules vary by state and territory, and most attach the duty to paid employment. So the volunteer coach who sees a child every week carries no legal duty, while a paid staff member who sees that child once a term does.

In the NT, every adult must report. In Victoria, the duty falls on named professions, covers only physical and sexual abuse, and stops at 17. Emotional abuse and neglect trigger a report in NSW, SA and Tasmania, but not in Victoria, Queensland or the ACT.

Keeping up?
This patchwork runs through much of our safeguarding system. Each sector has its own rules, and most rely on one person recognising risk one incident at a time.
In the NDIS, only registered providers carry a reporting duty, yet unregistered providers outnumbered them by more than 15 to one in mid-2025. Even schools, hospitals and childcare have different rules by jurisdiction.

So many cracks to slip through. But what if the warning sign isn't one incident? What if it's a pattern, if only we could connect the dots?
We built SAFE to connect observations across people and over time, because harm rarely shows up in a single moment. Our risk threshold logic and machine learning identify patterns in children's behaviour that might otherwise be missed, and qualified professionals review every signal before any significant action.

Our childcare rollout draws on 12 years of early childhood field data. I believe the same infrastructure could become the backbone of vulnerability protection across aged care, the NDIS and community sport.
What sector do you think should be next?

30/09/2026

Speaking with Mel Bampton on ABC Radio Brisbane, our founder Ruby O'Rourke made one thing clear: protecting children is not a job for government alone.

Every day, people in our communities see and hear things that matter. When we all play a part, fewer children fall through the gaps.

Listen to the full interview (1:40- 1:50):
https://ap1.hubs.ly/H01pqS-0

29/09/2026

Australia spends around $16 billion a year subsidising childcare. But how much have we invested in making parents trust it?

A major part of the economic case for our childcare system is workforce participation. But that return depends on something the economic model doesn’t capture: Parents have to trust childcare enough to actually use it.
Consider what the past year has shown them about whether that trust has been earned.

One hundred and fifteen centres Australia-wide were put on notice by the Commonwealth for serious safety breaches, with one Melbourne family day care provider stripped of federal funding - the first time that power has been used.

Five hundred and seven compliance actions were delivered by the regulator in South Australia alone, constituting a whopping 353 percent rise from just 112 across the whole year before.

And prohibition notices permanently banning individuals rose from 20 to 54 nationally between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, emergency action notices from 41 to 118, and cancelled approvals from 7 to 133. Regulators took 933 compliance actions nationally in that quarter alone.

Nothing about these incidents demonstrates a sector parents can trust with their children. And even though “more inspections” was given as the reason for the increased volume of actions, the breaches did not appear when the inspectors did.

They were already there, and nothing in the system could see them. Now bring this back to our workforce participation goal.

If even a fraction of parents lost confidence in the system due to these incidents, and reduced their children’s attendance by one day a week, a significant proportion of that projected workforce participation would disappear with it.

When you consider this, “trust” is the asset that helps us realise that $16 billion.

This lack of trust is what SAFE hopes to fix, by adding another layer of visibility that gives parents confidence that risks are being seen early and acted on. Our service turns educators' observations into a pattern while a concern is still something to address, rather than something to answer for.

What would restore your trust in the system as a parent?

29/09/2026

Last week on ABC Radio Brisbane with Mel Bampton, our founder Ruby O’Rourke opened her heart about what she feels when she hears about a child like Clementine.

For Ruby, this mission is personal. She knows what it’s like to be the child no one saw, and that’s what drives her to make sure every child is seen before harm happens.

Listen here: https://www.abc.net.au/.../brisbane-drive/drive/107173258
(Ruby's interview begins at 1:40 and runs until 1:50)

24/09/2026

Yesterday, our founder Ruby O'Rourke joined Mel Bampton on ABC Radio Brisbane Drive to talk about why so many children at risk go unseen.

Ruby shared her own story, and explained why the gap in child protection is rarely a lack of information. It's a lack of infrastructure to connect it. Children communicate through behaviour, and the quiet child is not always an OK child. When small observations from the people around a child are brought together, a clearer picture comes into view.

She also spoke about why child safety can't sit with government alone, and about SAFE's national rollout and Child Safety Index launching in 2027.

Thank you to ABC Radio Brisbane and Mel for giving this conversation the time it deserves.

24/09/2026

Our founder Ruby O'Rourke was on ABC Radio National Brisbane 's Drive program yesterday to discuss how we can identify warning signs before harm occurs, keep every child at the centre of decision-making, and the Red Flag Promise.

Thank you to ABC Radio Brisbane for having us, and for creating space to discuss this important issue.

Ruby's interview begins at 1:40 and runs until 1:50.

Listen here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/brisbane-drive/drive/107173258

Each day you'll hear Brisbane's best mix of news, sport, music and entertainment.

23/09/2026

Tune in this afternoon: our founder Ruby O'Rourke joins Mel Bampton on ABC Radio Brisbane today at 4.30pm.

Ruby will talk about why the problem in child protection isn't always a lack of information, whether we can see the warning signs before harm happens, and how to keep every child at the centre of the conversation as systems lean more on technology.

She'll also share more about the Red Flag Promise and how SAFE is working to close the gap.

Listen live ABC Radio Brisbane or ABC listen: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/live/brisbane



Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Listen live, whenever you want, wherever you are with ABC Brisbane.

16/09/2026

A leading child safety advocate is pushing for specialised intelligence hubs to be rolled out in every state to give judges the complete picture of critical safety information about at-risk children > https://bit.ly/4r0NeCF

10/09/2026

AI vs Machine Learning: what’s the difference, and why does it matter for a system built to help protect children?

SAFE’s triage program has been developed over more than a decade, with research and development partners including CSIRO, NICTA and the University of Queensland, and a three-year funding partnership with Westpac from 2020. It’s been tested against thousands of real, expert-reviewed cases, with every result checked by trained child safety specialists before it informs a decision.

That distinction matters: SAFE doesn’t replace professional judgement, it supports it, bringing together human observations and machine learning so patterns that would otherwise stay scattered can be seen sooner.

This National Child Protection Week, hear more about the thinking behind SAFE in Ruby O’Rourke’s special episode, Every Child Leaves Signals.

Watch now: https://campaign.safe.inc/ncpw-every-child-leaves-signals?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=NCPW_AIvsMachine