Teachers, nurses and priests are among some of the professionals who could face jail time under newly proposed mandatory reporting laws, should they fail to report suspected cases of child sex abuse.

The Tasmanian Government on Tuesday unveiled draft legislation that breaks "the seal of confession" in churches and makes mandatory reporting a criminal matter.

Under current legislation, many public sector workers already face fines if they fail to report suspected abuse.

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The CPSU's Tom Lynch said they were not consulted over the proposed legislation that could criminalise tens of thousands of mandatory reporters in Tasmania, adding further pressure on sectors that are already under-resourced and understaffed.

"If you're a nurse working in our emergency department I don't know where you get the time or space to mandatory report… you need to report to a service that only operates 9:00am — 5:00pm, Monday to Friday," he said.

"There should have been a detailed conversation with those mandatory reporter groups and their representatives before draft legislation was even put out.

Mr Lynch said changes to the Child Advice and Referral Service have made it more difficult for those with a duty of care to report cases of abuse.

"[It's designed] to push the obligation back to you... and this will act as a disincentive on reporters," he said.

Tasmania second state to force priests to report

The draft legislation removing "the seal of confession", forcing religious leaders to report revelations of child sex abuse heard during confession.

The centuries-old tradition binds priests of the Catholic Church to absolute secrecy, stopping priests from disclosing any information revealed to them during confession.

While federal Attorney-General Christian Porter has called on all states to adopt legislation forcing them to report child sexual abuse, only South Australia has come on board so far, with its law coming into effect yesterday.

Tasmania will become the second state to pass such legislation.

Attorney-General Elise Archer told ABC Radio Hobart the Catholic Church would be the main religious institution affected because the code of confession underpinned Catholic doctrine.

She said this legislation represented the first reforms that to have come about from the 409 recommendations made in the wake of the royal commission.

"These reforms do not isolate members of religious ministry from [reporting abuse], but rather they make it clear that all members of the community have an obligation to report abuse and, as I said, do everything in their power to prevent it from happening again," she said.

The proposed legislative changes have received backing from Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous as well as the Labor and Greens leaders.

"[There needs to be] really clear rules on how to report and clear resourcing on agencies who deal with those reports to be able to deal with them," Shadow Attorney-General Ella Haddad said.

"If you have information that a child is being preyed upon…[and] you make a choice not to [report it] there should be very serious sanctions," Green's leader Cassy O'Conner said.

'Catholics don't go to confession any more'

But Australian historian, broadcaster and former Catholic priest, Paul Collins, described the legislation is a "dead letter" that was "peripheral" to the issue.

"This is governments trying to show people that they're doing something about this problem," he told ABC Radio Hobart.

"The reality is for past 40 years Catholics simply don't go to confession... so in a sense this is really a non-issue.

"Sexual abusers are extremely secretive people and if there was a mandatory reporting law I think they would give the confessional a pretty wide berth," he said.

Mr Collins said despite this, the move was inevitable as most other states were in the process of forming legislation.

The draft legislation, which is not retrospective, will be released today for public consultation, and a government spokeswoman said the CPSU could have input now it was open.