The Green Paper for Vulnerable Children seminar at the Hutton Theatre, Otago museum, was sponsored by Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull.
Submissions on the green paper close on February 28.
Ms Chen said the Privacy Act amendment Bill before Parliament this week was "narrow".
It did not introduce mandatory reporting but sought to allow agencies, both public and private, to establish information sharing agreements.
Mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse was probably the "next cab off the rank", although unlikely to happen in this parliamentary term.
However, no law change of any description would solve the problem without culture change, she said.
As an example, the Official Information Act made mandatory the release of certain types of information, but that did not mean public officials abided by it, and often it was extremely difficult to get hold of the information sought.
Many agencies, particularly government departments, viewed knowledge as power, while often systems were set up to mean they operated in "silos".
She said the "tools" for reporting child abuse were actually in the Privacy Act, but that law was complex and open to interpretation.
The advantage of the amendment Bill was that it clarified more specifically the issues around information sharing.
Good reporting would always rely on those in the health and child-care sectors to use their personal judgement.
She suggested it was worth making the odd mistake in order to prevent children being beaten or killed.
As long was people acted in "good faith" they ran very little risk of running foul of the law.
If in doubt, people should ring the Privacy Commissioner's office, which was taxpayer-funded and could offer free advice.
Opening the seminar, Mr Cull said New Zealand's child abuse rates suggested children were not highly valued.
The green paper contained good suggestions of how to protect children, but the issue was a very broad one, he said.
Society expected too much of families.
Usually both parents had to work, often long hours, and they were expected to raise happy children, he said.
It was crucial to New Zealand's future that more was done to protect children, he said.
