In Australia, “Daniel’s Law” has become a loaded phrase, evoking grief, anger, and a long-running debate about how far the public should be allowed to see into the lives of convicted child sex offenders. Named after Daniel Morcombe, the Sunshine Coast teenager abducted and murdered in 2003, the term is now used to describe a growing set of state laws that allow limited public access to information about registered child sex offenders. While every Australian jurisdiction already shares offender data through police-only systems, Daniel’s Law marks a shift toward carefully controlled public disclosure, with Queensland’s version now the most visible example.
On 31 December 2025, Queensland launched its first public-facing child sex offender register, following legislation introduced earlier in the year. For decades, offender registration existed largely behind closed doors, accessible only to police through the national ANCOR system. Queensland’s new approach does not dismantle that framework; instead, it adds a public layer designed to respond to parental fear, community pressure, and the long-standing advocacy of the Morcombe family.
The Queensland model is deliberately tiered. At its most open level, it allows the public to view information about offenders who are non-compliant with reporting obligations and whose whereabouts are unknown. The logic is simple: if police are actively trying to locate someone considered a risk, the community should be alerted. At launch, that public list was empty, a fact officials highlighted as evidence that most registered offenders remain under supervision.
More restricted tiers require identity verification and a stated purpose. One pathway allows residents to see limited information, including images, of certain high-risk offenders living in their local area. Another is designed specifically for parents and guardians, enabling them to ask police whether a particular person who has unsupervised contact with their child is a registered offender. In these cases, disclosure is tightly framed, often limited to a yes-or-no confirmation rather than a detailed criminal history.
Queensland lawmakers have paired these access points with new criminal offences aimed at preventing vigilantism, harassment, or the misuse of disclosed information. Sharing screenshots, targeting individuals, or using the data to threaten or shame can itself result in prosecution. The message from police and government has been consistent: this is a safeguarding tool, not a weapon.
Queensland did not invent the model. Western Australia has operated a similar three-tier public disclosure system for years, often cited as the blueprint for newer schemes. WA’s Community Protection framework also distinguishes between missing offenders, localised risk-based disclosure, and parent-initiated checks, and it has heavily influenced legislative debates elsewhere.
South Australia followed suit in 2025, commencing a public register after passing amendments in 2024. Parliamentary debates there explicitly referenced the Western Australian approach, framing public access as a measured extension of existing police powers rather than a radical departure. Tasmania, meanwhile, has moved toward stronger disclosure and publication powers, particularly around missing offenders and parental inquiries, even if its system remains less visible nationally.
Supporters of Daniel’s Law argue that it empowers parents, restores trust after institutional failures, and honours victims by prioritising child safety. Critics, including some criminologists and child protection experts, warn that public registers can create a false sense of security. Most child sexual abuse is committed by someone known to the child and often by individuals with no prior conviction. Public disclosure, they argue, risks focusing attention on a small, already-monitored group while leaving deeper prevention gaps untouched.
Still, the political momentum is clear. Daniel’s Law has become shorthand for a broader recalibration of transparency, fear, and responsibility in child protection policy. In Queensland and beyond, the challenge now is whether these laws can deliver reassurance without collateral harm, and whether remembrance can coexist with restraint.
Monsters are among us. That’s the uncomfortable truth we keep trying to dodge, dress up, or push into the shadows until something so horrific happens that denial becomes obscene. Then, suddenly, everyone is shocked. Everyone demands action. Everyone asks how this could have happened. And everyone pretends they didn’t already know.
They always say “never again” after a tragedy. But let’s be honest: it’s never the first time. It’s just the first time it became impossible to look away.
We don’t act because we are proactive societies. We act because we are reactive ones. We wait for a child to be abducted, raped, murdered. We wait for parents to be shattered beyond repair. We wait for a name, a face, a story that fits neatly into a headline. Only then do lawmakers scramble, commissions are launched, systems are reviewed, and laws are baptised in grief. It’s as if suffering is the admission ticket for reform.
The problem isn’t that monsters exist. They always have. The problem is how invested we are in pretending they are rare, exceptional, and easily identifiable. We love the fantasy of the obvious villain: the stranger in the shadows, the outlier, the “bad apple.” It’s comforting. It lets institutions off the hook. It lets neighbours stay silent. It lets families, schools, churches, clubs, and systems avoid asking harder questions about power, access, secrecy, and complicity.
And yes, after tragedy, new laws are born. Registers go public. Systems become “tougher.” Politicians promise safety. But safety built on fear is a fragile thing. It risks becoming theatre: the appearance of control rather than its substance. Most abuse doesn’t come from the monster on a list. It comes from someone known, trusted, tolerated, excused. Someone who slipped through because warnings were ignored, reports minimised, victims doubted, and silence rewarded.
What really haunts me is not that action comes too late. It’s that we know exactly what needs to be done long before tragedy strikes. We know prevention requires listening to children, believing victims, funding social services, training professionals, challenging patriarchal entitlement, and dismantling cultures of secrecy. None of that is new. None of it is mysterious. It’s just inconvenient, slow, and politically unsexy.
So we wait. We wait for a child’s name to become a law. We wait for grief to do the work courage should have done earlier. And then we congratulate ourselves for finally acting.
Monsters are among us. The real question is why we keep waiting for them to kill before we decide to take children seriously.