A woman has won the right to work with people with disabilities despite having been convicted of assaulting her mother while caring for her years earlier.
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The disability worker, whose name is suppressed, was caring for her mother in June 2011 and the pair were living in the same home.
It was the afternoon, and the woman had just come back from court after being fined $500 for pushing a police officer while drunk earlier in the year.
She was drinking and began arguing with her mother, with whom she said she'd had a deteriorating relationship for some time.
The carer struck her mother, who she was nursing to health after hip surgery. That led to police charges of common assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Later that year, she began working as a disability support officer in the ACT.
She was later convicted of common assault but was approved by the Community Services Directorate to provide care services regardless.
Another background check was conducted in March 2013 under new laws governing those working with vulnerable people.
The woman failed that check, failed again in a review and then took the matter to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
At hearing, the woman denied she had struck her mother and said the caring situation was completely different to the disability support area she now worked in.
She said she had reduced her drinking and the stresses of caring for those with a disability were completely different to caring for her mother, where the stress was ongoing and constant, and she had nobody to express her frustrations to.
Her colleagues gave her glowing references, saying she "demonstrated at all times a professional and ethical attitude towards her work and her clients" and was someone "who puts her heart and soul into everything that she does to ensure that the people she supports have the best quality of life".
Her lawyer argued she had worked with vulnerable people safely since 2006, and there was no evidence of any crossover between her criminal and work histories.
He also argued that the test for working vulnerable people was whether there was an "unacceptable risk" of harm. And the evidence suggested there was no risk whatsoever.
But lawyers for the Commissioner for Fair Trading, who was responsible for the decision, argued the woman had assaulted a vulnerable person two years earlier.
She had a criminal history dating back to 1988 involving the use of alcohol and other substances.
The ACAT found the risk of the woman working with vulnerable persons while under the influence of alcohol as "very remote" and the risk of her assaulting a vulnerable person as substantive but as minor and unlikely.
The tribunal highlighted that the two previous incidents involving her mother and the police had occurred while she was drinking.
It accepted the evidence that she had reduced her alcohol consumption and had not been under the influence while at work.
The decision to issue her a negative notice under the Working with Vulnerable People Act was set aside and she was registered for three years.
