Thursday, 23 June 2022

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Child protection

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection and Family Services. Yesterday the Auditor-General tabled a report into kinship care, which revealed the government’s targets to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Victoria’s most vulnerable children are being met less than 1 per cent of the time. The Auditor-General said the failures of the government put children in care at risk. Why has the government failed over 99 per cent of the time to even check if our state’s most at-risk children are safe in care?

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe—Minister for Child Protection and Family Services, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (14:02): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Can I say that the decision by our child protection practitioners to remove a child from their parents is a decision made as a last resort. It is made in the interests of vulnerable children who may be at risk of neglect or abuse and those decisions, when they are made, overwhelmingly, as the Auditor-General’s report stated, in 33 per cent in a growth sense that we have seen is for kinship care. Those decisions are made, as the Auditor-General has outlined in his report, because kinship care overwhelmingly is where we get the best results and the best outcomes for vulnerable children. We get those outcomes because it is overwhelmingly—and it is outlined in that Auditor-General’s report—that our kinship carers are overwhelmingly women, they are overwhelmingly grandparents and great grandparents who are stepping up and stepping in when family situations go wrong to care for vulnerable children who they know because they are best placed as their kith and kin to look out for them, to bring them up and to look after them when everything else is going wrong in their lives.

When those decisions are made by our child protection workforce to put those vulnerable children in the care of their kin, before that is done police checks are done. They are done—they are absolutely and utterly done. Working with children checks are also commenced and done. Those checks are made before our child protection workforce, those professionals, make those decisions to place those vulnerable kids in the care of kin and we are very thankful for the work that they do 365 days of the year. Those child protection workers might not be emergency services workers in a uniform, they might not work in our hospitals, but they are heroes nonetheless. That is why our government has invested in an additional 1180 child protection practitioners since we came to office. That is why $2.8 billion has been invested in our child protection system in these past three budgets alone.

What the Auditor-General made very clear in recommendations that my department has accepted in full is, as we have always said, we can do better for vulnerable children. But it starts with action and it starts with a demonstration of the care and commitment not only to vulnerable children but to those who need to make those hard decisions every day of the year to keep them safe. Overwhelmingly the decisions that those professionals are making are to put those kids in the care of their extended family, and I thank them for the decisions those people are making to put themselves first with those children that they know and care for so that we get the best outcomes for them. Our government is committed to always doing better, to always investing in those workforces and to making those hard decisions. To the kinship carers that do overwhelmingly amazing work right out there in our workforce and in our community, we thank them.

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): Children in care have overwhelmingly previously experienced significant trauma, including sustained sexual and physical abuse. Further, almost one in six vulnerable children entering child protection has not been allocated a caseworker support by the government. That is over 2500 vulnerable children that have been left without the support they need when they need it. Given the proportion of children without a caseworker has more than tripled over the last year since the minister was appointed, are these children being placed at risk of yet further harm because of this government’s systematic failures?

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe—Minister for Child Protection and Family Services, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (14:05): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his supplementary question. Case allocation, case allocation—let us go to case allocation. Case loads under our government for our child protection workforce are down. Case loads are down. Case allocations: 86 per cent—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I just ask the minister to pause for a moment. This is a really serious topic, and members on either side shouting across the chamber when the minister is trying to answer this question will not be tolerated. People will be removed from the chamber without further warning.

Mr CARBINES: As I said earlier, case allocation under our government is up at 86 per cent— individual case allocation.

Mr Andrews: Up from 81.

Mr CARBINES: Eighty-one per cent under those opposite. More kids, vulnerable kids in care, are getting individual case management than ever before, and there are more child protection practitioners with lower case loads than ever before. That is the record of our government, and it happened because of a $2.8 billion investment over the past three budgets and 1180 additional funded child protection practitioner positions.