ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the small proportion of cases that reach the courtroom and the legal theories that courts have employed. Australian courts and advocates struggled to fit sexual abuse claims against schools within their existing legal framework. A number of antipodean cases considered the ability of parents to complain about the removal of the children on the suspicion that those children had been abused. In New Zealand, and New South Wales, courts had held that social welfare officials may owe a duty of care to act to protect children at risk. The New South Wales courts appear to have recognised the possibility of social workers owing a duty of care when they conduct an investigation into allegations of child abuse. In the last five years the High Court of Australia has produced an extraordinarily lengthy jurisprudence on the liability of government authorities, which has clearly established at least some instances where public authorities can be liable when exercising discretion.
