Adults in Canberra will face up to two years' in jail if they fail to report child sexual abuse, under legislation passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.

Information from the confessional will not be exempt from the laws, and ministers of religion will also become mandatory reporters under the legislation.

Labor, the Liberals and the Greens united to pass the bill, which is part of the territory's work to act on the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

But Liberals Giulia Jones and Vicki Dunne spoke out against the legislation, as the party views religion as a conscience matter.

Mrs Jones said the explicit mention of the confessional in the legislation was an "unnecessary and demonising act".

She said the bill was "divisive" in the way it was presented and debated, and hit out at the government choosing "this week of all weeks to be picking apart the details of someone’s religious practice".

“Religious practice does not have to be the focus of these provisions and the good people of faith who will be drawn into this are necessarily being demonised," Mrs Jones said.

"It is a very bad precedent at a time when we have all been reminded how the targeting of particular religious communities can have devastating consequences."

Mrs Dunne said while she supported "reasonable measures" to protect children, this legislation was "an attack on religious adherents and no one else".

"It is clearly discriminatory and an attack on people of faith. If it weren’t discriminatory and an attack on people of faith, we would see the government removing all privileges in all these circumstances," Mrs Dunne said.

"This law does not abolish the privilege enjoyed by other professionals like the legal professional privilege.

"A paedophile could in certain circumstances tell his lawyer that he had committed the crime of child abuse and his lawyer would not be bound to pass on this information. Only a priest has had this privilege withdrawn."

Despite their misgivings, Mrs Dunne and Mrs Jones did not vote against the bill.

ACT Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay said Mrs Jones' "attempt to draw any parallel between this legislation and recent events is disgraceful".

"Mrs Jones is not only out of step with her party, she is also out of step with the views of the overwhelming majority of Canberrans and Australians," Mr Ramsay said.

"This law is about doing whatever we can to keep our kids safe. Nobody is above the laws of our nation, no politician, no religious institution. This is about doing what is right, as we promised and we shall deliver on that promise."

Mrs Dunne and another Canberra Liberal Andrew Wall previously opposed earlier mandatory reporting laws because of the impact on the confessional seal. The rest of the party helped to pass the legislation.

The exemption created by the earlier legislation for information gleaned under the confessional expires on March 31.

The bill passed on Tuesday fixes a problem with that legislation in that only the head of a religious body was obliged to report abuse to the Ombudsman. Now all ministers of religion are considered mandatory reporters.

The Ombudsman can also nominate an individual as the head of a religious body, if the institution fails to do so itself.