Thursday, 9 March 2023

Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition, Aboriginal Self-determination and Other Matters) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ros Spence:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (12:08): Under standing orders I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated.

Amendments circulated under standing orders.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (12:09): I rise today to speak on the Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition, Aboriginal Self-determination and Other Matters) Bill 2023. I also note that an amendment has been circulated by the government in regard to this legislation. It is a minor change in relation to clause 7, where ‘order.’ is omitted and inserted is ‘order; or’. And further, in clause 7, page 15, after line 11 there is the insertion of:

(e) a permanent care order.

This legislation is very similar to legislation which came before the chamber last year. It unfortunately did not carry through; it lapsed in the upper house due to the cessation of the 59th Parliament of Victoria. The Liberals and Nationals do welcome the legislation coming back into the chamber in this 60th Parliament.

From the outset I would like to acknowledge all of the Indigenous people in my electorate of Lowan. We have a fabulous and rich Indigenous culture. We still have amazing connections to country through the region. In particular, the Grampians National Park – or Gariwerd, as it is also called – is home to almost 80 per cent of the state’s rock art. It is an incredibly rich culture which is in our region. We nurture it, and we encourage the government to make further investments so that we can better protect those areas of importance but also so that we can share this rich Indigenous heritage and we can ensure that other people can learn from and experience it and give Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous children, a cause for pride in what their forefathers did in our part of the state.

This legislation does have a number of elements around particularly child and health legislation, although there are other subsequent changes. The bill amends several pieces of legislation, including inserting an Aboriginal statement of recognition and recognition principles relating to child protection in the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005. It also makes a range of operational changes to the Commission for Children and Young People. The bill replaces the Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition and Other Matters) Bill 2022, which lapsed, with only minor changes. Briefly, those minor changes are legislating a series of so-called Aboriginal child placement principles, which were included in another lapsed bill which we were also determined to support, which was the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. It also gives Aboriginal community organisations the power to investigate reports rather than having to refer them back to the department. It further removes outdated language, such as replacing the word ‘Aborigine’ with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person’.

The main purposes of the bill are to amend the Children, Youth and Families Amendment 2005 to include the Aboriginal statement of recognition and recognition principles relating to child protection decision-making for Aboriginal children; to incorporate further Aboriginal child placement principles, such as the recognition of the importance of ongoing connections to family, which are already adhered to; and to make amendments relating to authorisations of principal officers of Aboriginal agencies. There are subsequent amendments which are really around providing better protections for children.

This is something that is incredibly important, because while we have set targets in accordance with the Closing the Gap priorities for the nation, unfortunately we have not seen outcomes which would reflect that we are moving ahead in closing the gap in those important elements of making sure that we have better outcomes for Indigenous people, that we try to ensure and do everything we possibly can to make sure that we have more children completing year 12, that we have better health outcomes and that Aboriginal people are looking at having a similar life expectancy to those who are from a non-Indigenous background. In Victoria in particular we are critically falling behind when it comes to target 12. Target 12 is in relation to the rate of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children 0 to 17 years old in out-of-home care by 45 per cent. This is an incredibly important target because we know that what children are exposed to in their formative years – in their early years in particular, from 0 to 4 – can have an incredible impact and make a huge difference to the outcomes for those young kids.

Unfortunately, in Victoria it is not just that we are staying stagnant in this terrible gap that we have got, we are actually increasing the gap. We are going backwards in Victoria. It is very, very disappointing to see the arrows pointing backwards when it comes to how Victoria is going ahead, and that is why I welcome this legislation. It just goes to show we need to do more, we need to do things differently, and while acknowledging past wrongs we also need to ensure that we focus on putting practical measures in place and put the effort in and the funding in place to ensure that we do substantially close the gap in all of the target areas that have been outlined by Closing the Gap.

For my part I am probably one of the few members of this place who has spent time in the Northern Territory where, as we see in the media now, there are some critical issues in regard to the gaps that are in place in outcomes between people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage and non-Indigenous people. I was there in the early 2000s, and it was absolutely heartbreaking to see particularly children who were not able to get the care that they required. But there really was not the appropriate support in place for individuals to break the cycle. It was very, very difficult, and of course we have now got that situation continuing. We have so much effort to go in this nation, so much work to do when it comes to closing the gap, and I do not think that there is anybody, certainly within this place, that would argue against that when it comes to health outcomes in particular but also educational outcomes, other socio-economic outcomes and even that connection to country for people who are not living on country any longer. We can do so much better, and we need to make sure that we do have appropriate and practical measures in place to do that.

I would like to commend the fabulous Indigenous organisations in my electorate because they do an outstanding job in advocating for better health outcomes and ensuring that there are particular protections in place for land and for country. I would like to particularly speak to Goolum Goolum in Horsham, Winda-Mara in Hamilton and also Budja Budja in Halls Gap. All of these organisations and the elders that assist in guiding them in the direction that they take do an absolutely fabulous job. They are able to be flexible in how they adapt to ensure that they are connecting with local Indigenous people and particularly focusing on Indigenous children and Indigenous women. I absolutely love being invited to any of their events because I know there will be a very unique perspective that looks at a problem with a different solution, and that is the importance of speaking to local people, of listening and of properly engaging in a way that is not just paying lip service but actually helping to empower Indigenous people to make their own decisions around their own lives and how they can make a difference in their own communities. I would also like to acknowledge Barengi Gadjin Land Council and Gunditjmara, both of which do an absolutely fabulous job in providing education for the community as much as doing great work to protect the land assets and the cultural heritage in our local area.

I would also like to highlight an area where I think we can do better in our part of the state. Over the summer break I like to travel locally. Perhaps while having a holiday you can go overseas or you can go interstate, but I actually like to keep it local and stay as close as I can to my local area. Given it is about 20 per cent of the state, it still gives me a fair district to travel to. Over the summer break we did go camping down towards the south of my electorate. We took the time to go to Budj Bim, and the investment there is amazing in terms of how there is a translation of Indigenous heritage, culture and stories, how it has been presented to allow tourists to access that – and local people as well.

However, when I compare the investment that has been made at Budj Bim, I really would love to see a similar investment and approach when it comes to Brambuk cultural heritage centre in Halls Gap. Brambuk was established many, many years ago – decades ago – and unfortunately it does not bring that same level of communication, understanding and learning for tourists and for local people to be able to engage and understand our local cultural heritage in a positive way and a unique way. In fact Brambuk has now been handed back from the traditional owners in the area to Parks Victoria, and it really does need a significant investment. I think that there are massive opportunities in terms of investing in our local area to provide unique opportunities for local Indigenous individuals to tell their story, to talk about their heritage and to engage with the tourism sector and the many thousands of tourists that come to Gariwerd every single year.

All it needs is that investment. We have a budget coming up. I urge government to provide that investment to Brambuk but also to Winda-Mara, to Goolum Goolum and to Budja Budja. All of these organisations need key investment to make sure that they can continue to provide health services and other support services to their local people and to ensure that they can do all the work and continue their efforts in closing the gap. In many instances this is about providing an expansion of services, and they have run out of space. Certainly that is the case for Winda-Mara in Hamilton. Goolum fortunately will be expanding, and they are underway at the moment. Budja Budja is always close to capacity; I think as soon as there is another room added on they manage to fill it very, very quickly because they are so passionate about improving health outcomes for the local community and closing that important gap.

The important element of this legislation is really around addressing some of those key issues around the number of children in foster care and kinship care in Victoria. We disproportionately have an enormous number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in care. This is not a fabulous outcome for these children. We need to ensure that we can wherever possible reduce the harms among children but keep them as close as we can to their culture and to their family and ensure that they have the best possible outcomes in life. This bill is a step towards giving vulnerable Aboriginal children the same protections as non-Indigenous children in care through greater powers for Aboriginal-led community agencies. The Liberals and Nationals have been calling for greater powers for Aboriginal organisations for years, so of course we support this legislation. When a similar bill came through Parliament in the last term the Liberals and Nationals were unanimously determined to support it.

In summary, this bill contains a number of amendments to a variety of legislation. We are very, very keen to see this through. Most importantly, the Liberals and Nationals are absolutely committed to ensuring we do what we can to retain Aboriginal culture and heritage, to ensure that we have good connection between Aboriginal people and country, to ensure that that knowledge and pride in culture is retained and passed on to future generations and to continue, while acknowledging the wrongs of the past, to focus in whichever way we possibly can on self-determination to help close the gap for all of those key targets, because we simply cannot continue to see gaps grow and become chasms rather than addressing the critical needs, particularly of younger Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. I commend the bill to the house.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (12:23): It is my pleasure to rise in support of the Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition, Aboriginal Self-determination and Other Matters) Bill 2023, a bill that very strongly demonstrates our government’s commitment to embedding Aboriginal self-determination in the legislative framework of our state. It does this by making key amendments to an important series of acts which govern how we work with Victoria’s First Peoples as well as their children and families. It is a bill that sits very firmly within a context of the nation-leading journey to treaty and truth that this government is on, a journey of structural reform to drive better outcomes.

Something I emphasise a lot in this place when I am talking in particular about our path to treaty and truth – and truth-telling is a part of that – is that this not about symbolism. This is firmly about driving better outcomes, and we are all very clearly focused on trying to move the dial on those closing the gap targets. I suppose the clarity of thought that we have, particularly on the side of the chamber, is that treaty presents a clear opportunity and is a key vehicle for us to achieve that change that we need to see, to achieve that moving of the dial, because it is underpinned by a very simple proposition, which is that outcomes for Aboriginal people will improve when Aboriginal people have control of their own affairs. We have seen it work in a microcosm where we have chosen to do it in particular programs or initiatives, and this is really about stepping that up and addressing this structural disadvantage in a structural way and using truth-telling and treaty to that end.

We are very proud to be the first jurisdiction to enact all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which are of course truth, treaty and voice. And our state will be taking even greater strides in the time ahead as we commence those substantive treaty negotiations with our First Peoples later this year. But this bill clearly demonstrates how we can balance meeting the acute reform needs of today while also ensuring that we do not limit the profound opportunities that stand before us through that truth and treaty process. We can walk and chew gum. That is very much a part of what this bill represents here today.

Obviously as the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, it is a great privilege for me to be able to make a few remarks on it. Before I get to the heart of the bill and the elements I want to focus on, I just want to address the amendment that has been circulated and explain those changes. The policy intent of this bill includes that authorised Aboriginal agencies can make applications related to permanent care orders relating to children already authorised to those agencies. The house amendment that has just been circulated clarifies that section 18 reflects this intent and progresses towards full Aboriginal self-determination by clarifying the ability for authorised Aboriginal agencies to make applications for the full suite of intended orders. This will clarify that authorised Aboriginal agencies do not have to return authorisation of Aboriginal children to the secretary of the department to make applications related to permanent care orders. So hopefully that sheds some light on the intent behind those amendments that have been circulated.

Now to offer some remarks on key sections of this bill, particularly those that relate to my areas of responsibility and interest. I have already outlined that at the heart of this bill lie the principles of truth and self-determination and the broader context that that sits within, and it does this through the inclusion within the bill of statements of recognition that will be incorporated into the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 as well as the Health Services Act 1988 and Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. The purpose of these is to acknowledge the lasting impact of racist laws, practices and policies on the health and wellbeing of children and families of Victoria’s First Peoples since colonisation, but importantly also the impacts that continue to operate, sadly, to this very day, because we know that these impacts are not purely historic. We know that actions of the past continue to live on through our systems and structures and continue to do harm to this very day, which is also the very reason that the Yoorrook Justice Commission was charged with not only looking backwards at what had happened but also looking at the ongoing contemporary impact of that, so that we could move forward with a new way of doing things, so that we could effectively change and stop that ongoing harm that has been caused to vulnerable communities across our state.

So the statement of recognition will be placed prominently for policymakers within respective legislation in recognition of the historical importance of the statement of recognition and its importance of course for Aboriginal people. This has been something that has been asked of us by community, and hopefully, if I get time in the latter parts my contribution, I may get to outlining that little bit further.

I want also to talk in a bit more detail about those changes to the various pieces of legislation. In the health legislation amendments there are non-binding principles which will provide an important framework to support Aboriginal self-determination in health and wellbeing services and to guide organisations within that sector. Even more powerfully, the principles in the Children, Youth and Families Act will enact policy into practice and also guide decision-making by binding all decision-makers to approach their decisions for Aboriginal children through an Aboriginal lens. Further, this act will now include all five aspects underpinning the intent of the Aboriginal child placement principle – namely prevention, participation, partnership, placement and connection – and thus progress a key priority of the Aboriginal health and wellbeing partnership forum by enshrining commitments to Aboriginal self-determination in our health legislation.

Now, importantly, the bill also streamlines the authorisation process and expands the functions that can be authorised for Aboriginal agencies under the Aboriginal children in Aboriginal care program to work with a child across the investigation phase and when the child is subject to a protection order. By providing an Aboriginal approach to investigating child protection reports by Aboriginal agencies, there is a very strong potential to reduce the need for further intervention and to also reduce the number of Aboriginal children entering care, which as we have heard via the lead speaker from the opposition is, I think, a bipartisan objective in this place and something that we all want to see improve in the time ahead.

Provisions created by this bill also give Aboriginal community controlled organisations greater opportunity to work with Aboriginal children and families, and ultimately this is in recognition that Aboriginal people are best placed to lead and inform responses for Aboriginal children and families. As I said, this is a fairly simple proposition that by putting greater control of Aboriginal affairs into Aboriginal hands we will realise better outcomes. It is obviously also a conversation that we are having nationally at the moment, with the idea of enshrining in this nation’s founding document recognition of our First Peoples and enshrining a process whereby Aboriginal people can have their voices heard on those issues that directly impact them.

We are at a very significant point in time as a state and as a nation in terms of how we reconcile with a past that has brought great pain and done great harm to our First Nations people and how we can, through that process, move forward with confidence in who we are and unencumbered by untold truths that we have held onto for far too long and that have continued to do harm and how we can meaningfully engage, hear from and work in partnership with our First Peoples to ensure that we are driving better outcomes and that we are finally moving the dial on persistently bad outcomes which we are at regular intervals reminded of through our closing the gap work.

Finally, I can hopefully get to acknowledging some key people and organisations who have made this change possible. These include the Victorian Aboriginal Children and Young People’s Alliance representing Aboriginal community controlled organisations, the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, better known as VACCA, Rumbalara, Njernda and our very hardworking departments as well, all of whom were pivotal in the shared co-design of the Aboriginal statement of recognition and accompanying recognition principles. This is really a historical reform agenda that we are pursuing, and while this may all look very technical on its face I think we need to make sure that we are looking at this in the context of this bigger, broader and more powerful journey that we are on as a state, which of course sits amidst a bigger conversation that we are currently having as a nation and also that we can move towards a future where we are achieving better outcomes for our First Nations people.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (12:33): I do not think any of us would disagree that one of the most important parts of our role as MPs and of the role of a government is to ensure children are safe, and child protection has not gone so well. I am pleased actually with some of the changes that are being looked at here to improve things in that area that I can speak to in this bill at the moment.

The bill we are referring to is the Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition, Aboriginal Self-determination and Other Matters) Bill 2023. What it does is amend several pieces of legislation. It includes an Aboriginal statement of recognition and recognition of principles relating to child protection in the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 and makes a range of operational changes to the Commission for Children and Young People. When you hear the words ‘make a number of operational changes’ you think that that means and expect that that means we are going to do things differently and that this is the framework that is being set up to do things differently, because we all know that things need to be done differently. What is happening at the moment is not really working, to the point that I note in the minister’s second-reading speech that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community themselves know the system is failing those of their young children that are in child protection.

We have heard the evidence that was given at the Yoorrook Justice Commission hearing in December 2022 – that was not so very long ago – which brought into sharp focus the community’s concerns about the absolute over-representation of Aboriginal in the child protection system. On top of that, they were also very concerned about the extent of children being removed from the care of their families. So it is really important not only that we understand but that the community know that what is in place has not been working and that things need to change.

What this bill itself does is aim to progress not just to self-determination but to things that they can do to improve the system in stages that are going to overhaul the system so that it can be a much more an Aboriginal-led service delivery, because at the end of the day what we are looking for is improved outcomes for everybody, and improved outcomes are something we absolutely need. Part of the purpose here is to legislate a series of what is referred to as Aboriginal child placement principles. Now, this bill actually had lapsed. It was in the 59th Parliament, and it did not get through in the other place. We are seeing it come back almost in its entirety but with a little bit from another bill that we had seen as well. Also, this is to give Aboriginal community organisations the power to investigate reports rather than having to refer them back to the department and consequentially to remove outdated language, such as replacing the word ‘Aboriginal’ with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person’ and things like that.

But I want to give a little bit of a background here, because the government has committed to reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the care system by 45 per cent by 2031, as signatories of the Closing the Gap national agreement. But in this endeavour the government is failing very badly, and I will go through some of the statistics shortly. In Victoria one in 10 Aboriginal children on any given day is in care. This is the worst rate in the country. It is really quite extraordinary that with the population that we have, which may not be as great as in the territories or Queensland or New South Wales, for example, we are having such an enormous over-representation.

The Commission for Children and Young People recently found that there has been a disproportionate increase in deaths of Aboriginal children in care in recent years, including 13 of the last 45 deaths in 2021. Most Aboriginal children in care are in what we refer to as kinship care with another family member – usually an aunty, grandmother, sometimes cousins – and I have seen quite a number of these arrangements in place, just through my work as an MP in an area which is fairly rich in Aboriginal heritage. The idea of kinship care, obviously, in this situation is so that they can maintain a connection to culture, because what I have heard previously is that when children are removed from the care of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community they lose that connection with their Aboriginality and with their heritage and do not have that opportunity to participate and understand how it really works. So 90 per cent of kinship arrangements are directly managed by the department – and I know that the union are pretty keen on having that stay in place – rather than a community agency, and I think this is important. Community agencies really have a much better track record of keeping children safe and safely reuniting children with their biological parents. The Auditor-General actually found last year that 84 per cent of the time department case managers did not carry out welfare checks of children in kinship care. For children in foster care it is a little bit different. They are managed by a staff member from a community agency.

The bill here is a step towards changing that, because we are talking about a number of very vulnerable children in vulnerable communities, and we really need the same protections as for non-Indigenous children in care through the greater powers of Aboriginal-led community agencies. This is certainly something we have been calling for for years – greater powers for Aboriginal organisations to actually become involved. Those in the house from last time may recall that this is a bill that we supported last time.

I have got some tables of statistics here that I do want to refer to, because the Report on Government Services shows that the rate of Indigenous children in protection has increased by 63 per cent. That is extraordinary. If you have a look at the statistics for this year, the rates have gone up absolutely astronomically. Victorian Aboriginal children are 16.1 times more likely to be involved in child protection compared with non-Aboriginal Victorian children. It is just extraordinary. I refer to the fact that we have signed the Closing the Gap national agreement, which includes a target to reduce this over-representation. I think that everybody should be appalled at the rate we have in this area. For kids in care there is a dreadful pipeline whereby so many vulnerable children move from child protection to youth justice, and that is just not what we want to see. We have to change that. It is just not good enough.

If I have a look at the statistics for children in care aged zero to 17 years by Indigenous status, the rate per thousand children in Victoria of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in this age group in care in 2021–22 was 102.2, compared to the next highest, which was South Australia at 92.7. In New South Wales it was 57.3. This rate of children in care is extraordinary, and it has been going up. If we have a look at where it was in 2010–11, it was 57.3, and now it is up to 102.2. In 2020–21 it was 103. These figures are just getting worse, so the government in their eight years have failed this community and these children so miserably. It is awful to read the statistics and to have a look at each year. I am happy to table these documents if members on the other side would like so they can really understand the failures of the community in this area and of these children. Having a bill like this, which is designed to turn that around – well, golly, it really does need turning around, because at the moment the ship is sailing in the wrong direction. As has previously been said, the coalition has supported a similar bill in what it looked like last time it was here, and we will continue to do the same this time.

Colin BROOKS (Bundoora – Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:43): It is a great honour to be able to speak on this piece of legislation, which is a significant step on the journey to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children and young people in our child protection and care system. I had the privilege of serving as Minister for Child Protection and Family Services for four or five months prior to the last election, and it gave me an exposure to a child protection and care system that I was incredibly impressed by, whilst acknowledging the difficulties and the challenge of our child protection practitioners’ work, the system they work in and the families that they seek to support.

The sense of shared purpose around a direction for reform under the Roadmap for Reform: Strong Families, Safe Children is incredible. We have all parts of the system, all parts of the sector, working together to improve outcomes for children and families. That is backed in by significant investment. Over the last parliamentary term some $2.9 billion was invested by the government to address improving those outcomes for children and young people, predominantly through shifting the focus from reacting to families and children in crisis and needing child protection to a more focused approach on early intervention and providing family support, so supporting families before they come into crisis and before children come into contact with the child protection system.

I think it is important for members considering this bill to reflect on not just the fact that there are significant challenges in the system – which there are, and we have a lot of work to do – but that there is a really sound policy direction that the sector is working on together with government, and significant resources are being applied to the problem. I am glad to see that there is a bipartisan approach in terms of the support for the bill in this chamber today.

In terms of the over-representation of Aboriginal children and young people, the key policy framework, the agreement, is Wungurilwil Gapgapduir. It is a three-way agreement between Aboriginal community organisations, broader community service organisations and government, all working together under the broader road map to reform to bring down that rate of over-representation, predominantly through adopting self-determinative models, which this bill goes to today.

I want to talk about some aspects of this bill. First of all, it is important that as we make these changes members are cognisant that the best interests of the child will always remain paramount. That does not change in the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005; it is an important principle. There are some really key pieces of this legislation I want to come to, but before I do there are some smaller yet still really important parts that I think are worth mentioning. The bill removes outdated language from the Children, Youth and Families Act, the Health Services Act 1988 and the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. They are technical changes but important changes. Language is important, particularly when we are dealing with the way in which we approach Aboriginal culture, so it is important that that language is updated. It also allows for the Commission for Children and Young People to ensure that they can advocate on behalf of children that have been in the child protection or care sector – either in the system or recently in the system. That is a really important reform, one that the commission had been advocating for for some time. It allows them to engage with the departments and other service providers in the best interests of the children that they might be with dealing with.

I just want to take a moment to pause and to thank the commission. They do great work as an independent commission calling out areas where we can improve our service delivery and we can do better. They are passionate people. Both the principal commissioner Liana Buchanan and the Aboriginal children’s commissioner Meena Singh are wonderful people – intelligent, articulate and passionate about the best interests of children – so I want to take the opportunity to thank them for their work.

One of the three key areas that I do want to focus on is that the bill introduces a statement of recognition, which members have spoken about. It is important, I think, for members, if they have not had the chance to look at the statement in the bill – it is contained in the bill – to have a look at it. It is important not only that we say these words and that we agree on them but that we are committing them to legislation. I will not read the whole statement out, but for those members that have not had the benefit, the statement of recognition says:

(1) The Parliament formally recognises that Aboriginal people are the First Nations people of Australia.

We acknowledge:

(a) the child protection system played a key role in the enactment of policies leading to the dispossession, colonisation and assimilation of Aboriginal people; and

(b) the laws, practices and policies of former child protection systems resulted in the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, culture and Country, by compulsion, in an effort to assimilate and extinguish their culture and identity.

(3) The Parliament recognises the systematic forcible removal of Aboriginal children through the laws, practices and policies of the child protection system has substantially contributed to –

(a) a legacy of disconnection …

(b) intergenerational trauma …

(c) entrenched social disadvantage and dysfunction …

(d) marginalisation …

(e) a distrust of the child protection system.

(4) The Parliament recognises that ongoing structural inequality and systemic racism impact Aboriginal people and culture in relation to –

(a) decision-making in the child protection system; and

(b) over-representation of Aboriginal children in the child protection system.

It is important for us to commit those words to legislation. That was just the first part of the statement of recognition. The bill also enshrines the five elements of the Aboriginal child placement principles into the Children, Youth and Families Act, which strengthens the importance of decision-makers in the system taking into account when making decisions prevention, participation, partnership, placement and connection.

I think one of the critical areas of this bill is the expanding of the functions under the Children, Youth and Families Act which can be delegated to an Aboriginal community controlled organisation. Two of the Aboriginal community controlled organisations that are leading this work will be able to not only provide care for Aboriginal children in a culturally appropriate way – so Aboriginal communities providing care for Aboriginal children – but to move into the earlier part of the child protection process, the investigation phase. It is so important that that is done in a culturally appropriate way.

I had the opportunity to attend an Aboriginal children’s forum in Wodonga prior to the end of the last parliamentary term. The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency presented on their community protecting boorais – an incredible piece of work – and they are looking forward to being able to do more work with Aboriginal children and young people once this legislation passes the Parliament. I do want to acknowledge the work that VACCA does and also the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Cooperative, BDAC.

As I said, there is already work that goes on in terms of the care of Aboriginal children and young people by Aboriginal community controlled organisations under the Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care program. That has already demonstrated higher reunification rates – so getting kids back with their families, and safe families, which is fantastic – lower rates of children transitioning to longer term care orders and more culturally appropriate, trauma-informed, timely and responsive care for young people as well. That is built on a stronger connection between those children and their community. So this is an important piece of work that, as I say, is now being expanded, if this bill passes, to include more of the child protection process so that these Aboriginal community controlled organisations can do more of that work.

I just wanted to reflect on that, because given the impact of child protection policies in the past on Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal people, one could be forgiven if Aboriginal communities were not doing this work. But they are, and I think it is an incredible thing to witness the passion, the generosity and the commitment of so many members of the Victorian Aboriginal community who are doing this work and who want to do more work to keep Aboriginal children safe. As a Parliament this bill is a very important way of us expressing our support for that work. There is no doubt that on the journey through the Roadmap for Reform, Wungurilwil Gapgapduir, the implementation of this bill and the pilot that it will enable we will face challenges. There will be ups and downs along this road, but it is an important step for this Parliament to take, to encourage more participation and a more culturally appropriate form of Aboriginal child protection and trauma-informed care through the Aboriginal communities themselves.

I want to commend the bill to the house and thank all of those people that have been involved in the putting together of this piece of legislation. As I say, I think the take-out for me and for the house is that all of those people who work not just with Aboriginal children in care but right across the child protection system and the care service system – foster carers, kinship carers – are wonderful people who do amazing work every day, and we should thank them for the work they do.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:53): I rise to speak on the Children and Health Legislation Amendment (Statement of Recognition, Aboriginal Self-determination and Other Matters) Bill 2023, and I do so because this is a very important bill for many reasons. Some of the purposes of the bill are to include an Aboriginal statement of recognition and recognition principles relating to child protection decision-making for Aboriginal children and to incorporate further Aboriginal child placement principles, such as recognition of the importance of ongoing connections to family. This bill is important particularly in a state where on any given day one in 10 Aboriginal children is in care – one in 10. That is a shocking figure, and it is worth noting that it was one in six when the Liberal government were in power. In the last decade, when the Labor government have been in power, it has deteriorated to the over-representation of an increase of 63 per cent since 2014. These are appalling figures. It has risen from 57.3 children per thousand to 102, so we have seen a massive deterioration in the period that this government has been in power.

I am proud to have spent a large part of my professional working life in an Aboriginal community controlled health organisation, an ACCHO, the Kirrae Health Service at the Framlingham Aboriginal community, where I actually was often a representative on the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation committees and spoke to certain situations around health implications and particularly child care. I have spoken about this at length in the house on many occasions. I worked with and I helped the community in Framlingham to achieve important health outcomes and to break down barriers that do not exist for many in the wider community, and I witnessed the ongoing trauma caused by the policies of forced assimilation and systemic discrimination – and again, I have spoken about specific examples in this Parliament before of things I have witnessed.

But I also witnessed a community’s strength and resilience, a resilience and strength forged by generations of struggle and hardship but fortified by connections to both family and country. The Aboriginal community’s concept of family incorporates the notion of the extended family, a notion that has largely disappeared from contemporary Australia, more familiar with the nuclear family. All communities love their children. That we all understand and have no doubt. But Aboriginal communities really, really love their children. A child’s wellbeing is the focus of the community, and I certainly witnessed that and can speak very much to that. Parents and caregivers scrimp, save and go without for the best for their loved ones. They might not have much, but they shower what they have on their kids.

This bill highlights the importance of kinship carers in the Aboriginal community but also in the wider Victorian community. This is particularly poignant in a week where we celebrated International Women’s Day, as the bulk of kinship carers are women: grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, sisters and cousins. They have all stepped up for the care of kids, and I witnessed this over and over again at Framlingham – to the detriment of sometimes the adults, but the children are always put first. Kinship carers are family, frequently grandparents, who provide care for children who cannot live with their parents. Kinship carers are the unsung heroes of our community, and these people step in to look after vulnerable children when they cannot be cared for by their parents, often due to addiction or ill health. It is important to acknowledge that kinship carers rarely receive support for providing this care and often dip into their modest retirement funds or return to the workforce in order to provide for the needs of the youngsters in their care.

I have met with kinship carers many times in Warrnambool and have been fortunate to spend some time with them to hear their experiences dealing with the bureaucracy and small children. These carers really deserve not just awards and recognition for their work but some meaningful financial support. It is disappointing that this government has not recognised that and is not recognising that the cost of not supporting these families – these grandparents, these sisters and these aunts – is much greater to our community and to those children who we are concerned about, by not paying more to the families for the great job they do to support their young children whose families cannot step up at that time. It is a missed opportunity, and I am disappointed that this bill is not addressing this.

The bill also broadens the authorisations for Aboriginal organisations under the Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care program. This bill allows them to be authorised for any specified child protection functions, following a report and classification. This development is crucially important for the welfare of Aboriginal children. It is well documented that our hardworking and dedicated departmental child welfare staff are under-resourced and frequently overwhelmed, and all too often vulnerable children fall through the cracks. Red flags are not seen, and tragedy often follows. It is reassuring that this bill will authorise Aboriginal organisations for any specified child protection functions. Given we have finally recognised the importance of country and culture it is reassuring, if Aboriginal children are to be removed from their parents care, it will be done with a view of maintaining connection to family and country. I hope that this practice actually does address the shortfalls, but I have my doubts.

This bill could have had the ability to change lives for the better, and I wonder what a difference it could have made to the life of a young Aboriginal child whose grandparent has regularly sought my assistance as they battle a system that struggles to recognise the importance of family, culture and country. I was initially contacted by this grandparent in 2020, when a grandchild was removed from their parent and taken into care. What followed has been a litany of disastrous decisions after disastrous decisions that have been compounded by a lack of culturally appropriate care and failure by this government for this child. I receive regular updates from this grandparent. The contents of the emails and telephone calls are heartbreaking. We can and must do more for Aboriginal children. I will share with the house some edited emails from the grandparent:

For all the talk our country goes on about recognizing the first peoples, in respecting them and their land it’s surely symptomatic of our huge failures as a nation to truly help many of these people.

My summary today of where grandchild is at is, due to agitation etc re the child is now in a nice house in suburbs with round the clock Staff.

My summary is that the child is in a type of palliative care, everyone pussy footing round the child, who goes out on street whenever they like, and is down to the drug dealers at one of the stations, it’s a rinse and repeat cycle of, Sleep half day, then out to score and whatever, back on own volition or via cops, coming down off the meth and the other, any crap they takes, back home, more phyc pills, total depression and withdrawal probs, violence, escalation, hospital, back to house and rinse and repeat, no school, bugger all food management, up all night watching whatever crap on tv, Netflix etc …

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.