Can child protection be called in Tasmania because I have a prescription?

What the law actually says

Tasmania frames the concept as a child being "at risk", and keys the reporting duty to abuse or neglect rather than to any substance.

Section 4 — when a child is at risk. The grounds include: the child has been, is being, or is likely to be abused or neglected; a person the child lives with or has frequent contact with has threatened to kill, abuse or neglect the child with a reasonable likelihood of the threat being carried out, or has done so to another child or an adult with a reasonable likelihood of it happening to this child; the child is an affected child under the Family Violence Act 2004; the guardians are unable or unwilling to maintain the child or to exercise adequate supervision and control, are dead, have abandoned the child, or are unwilling or unable to prevent the child suffering abuse or neglect; and a school non-attendance ground for children under 16.

No ground refers to a medicine or a diagnosis. The limb worth being straight about is supervision: if a medicine genuinely left a carer unable to supervise a child, that is capable of engaging section 4(1)(c)(ii) — but that is a question about capacity on the evidence, and it is the same question that would be asked about any sedating medicine, prescribed or not. Holding a prescription does not answer it either way.

Section 14 — who must inform, and about what. A "prescribed person" is defined to include a medical practitioner; a registered or enrolled nurse; a registered midwife; a registered dentist, dental therapist, dental hygienist or oral health therapist; a registered psychologist; a police officer; a probation officer; a principal or teacher in any educational institution including a kindergarten; a person providing child care for fee or reward; and a person concerned in the management of an approved education and care service.

Section 14(2) requires a prescribed person acting in their official duties or work (paid or voluntary) who believes, suspects on reasonable grounds, or knows that a child has been or is being abused or neglected, or is an affected child under the Family Violence Act 2004, or that there is a reasonable likelihood of the child being killed, abused or neglected by someone they live with, to inform the Secretary or a Community-Based Intake Service as soon as practicable. There are additional limbs covering pregnancy. Penalty: a fine not exceeding 20 penalty units.

The trigger is abuse or neglect. It is not the presence of a prescription.

What happens if it goes wrong

Section 14(3) requires the person informing to include a statement of the observations, information, opinions and other grounds the belief or suspicion rests on. That cuts both ways and is worth knowing: a report is not just an allegation, it has to carry its reasoning, and the reasoning is what any assessment will actually examine.

Under section 14(4) the Secretary may issue or approve guidelines about how a person informs. We did not read those guidelines — they sit outside the Act — so this page says nothing about their content.

We also did not read what happens after the Secretary is informed, or what a parent must agree to during an assessment.