After two years of interim appointments, Tasmania has a new children’s commissioner, with former child advocate Sonya Pringle-Jones appointed to lead the state’s new Commission for Children and Young People.
The commission will be formally established on Thursday, October 8, when Pringle-Jones starts in the role.
As required under the Commission for Children and Young People Act, the recruitment process included both a senior panel and a youth-led panel.
“That commitment was brought to life through a recruitment process that gave young Tasmanians a direct role in selecting the inaugural commissioner,” Attorney-General Guy Barnett said.
“I thank the young Tasmanians who participated for their thoughtful contribution and commitment to helping shape the future of the commission.”
Leanne McLean was the last commissioner appointed on a non-interim basis, leaving in October 2024.
Barnett thanked current interim commissioner Ros Cornish for “her invaluable service”.
In welcoming the appointment, Cornish said the new commission would build on a history that began in October 2000, when Tasmania became one of the first Australian jurisdictions to appoint a children’s commissioner.
“It has been my pleasure to serve Tasmanian children and young people,” she said.
Legislation to create the commission passed the Tasmanian parliament in December 2025.
The commissioner will head the agency, supported by a commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people.
The commission’s functions include conducting inquiries into systemic issues and monitoring the wellbeing, care and treatment of children in out-of-home care and the youth justice system.
“The new commission delivers on key recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry, including a stronger focus on children’s rights and participation and ensuring young people have a genuine voice in decisions that affect them,” Barnett said.
Pringle-Jones became Tasmania’s first child advocate in 2018, advocating for children in foster, kinship and residential care.
She previously worked as a child protection worker in Hobart and in therapeutic services with the Australian Childhood Foundation.
“Ms Pringle-Jones has dedicated her career to championing children’s rights, amplifying young people’s voices and improving outcomes for vulnerable children across Tasmania,” Barnett said.
In 2022, while she was child advocate, Pringle-Jones gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.
In her written statement, she said she received at least 120 referrals a year and, until a liaison officer joined her in 2022, had worked “without a team, delegation or a budget”.
She said adults needed to “be strong enough to deeply listen and wise enough to drop our own agenda” and encouraged others to ask “whose needs are being met?”
At the time, the child advocate role was not established under legislation.
It sat within the Department of Communities, which was responsible for Tasmania’s child safety service. The role reported directly to the department’s secretary.
The department has since been abolished.
In her evidence, Pringle-Jones noted there had been debate over whether the role should sit inside or outside the department and that Tasmania’s then children’s commissioner had recommended it be moved outside.
She said she believed the role’s position within the department allowed it greater influence.
“I do not believe I would be able to bring this level of influence regarding the needs of individual children if I sat outside of the department,” she wrote.
Under the new legislation, the child advocate is a statutory role within the commission she will now lead.
Pringle-Jones also wrote about the number of reviews of Tasmania’s child safety system, saying she often repeated the phrase “we need doers not reviewers”.
She said the department’s leadership knew what needed to be done and should be given the opportunity to implement reforms.
