Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Ben CARROLL (Niddrie – Minister for Education, Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC) (20:29): In accordance with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006, I table a statement of compatibility in relation to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025:

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Charter), I make this Statement of Compatibility with respect to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025 (the Bill).

In my opinion, the Bill as introduced to the Legislative Assembly, is compatible with the human rights as set out in the Charter. I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

Overview

The main purpose of the Bill is to amend the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 to revise the permanency settings including by removing adoption from the hierarchy of case planning objectives, providing the Children’s Court with greater discretion and flexibility in relation to the duration of family reunification orders, and changing legislative terminology to refer to and require consideration of stability in the best interests principles.

Relevant human rights

The following rights under the Charter are engaged by the Bill:

• privacy and reputation (section 13),

• protection of families and children (section 17); and

• protection of cultural rights including Aboriginal cultural rights (section 19).

For the following reasons, I am satisfied that the Bill is compatible with the Charter. Relevantly, all measures in the Bill are intended to promote the protection of families and children and so, to the extent that any rights are limited, those limitations are reasonable and justified in accordance with section 7(2) of the Charter.

Analysis of relevant human rights

Right to privacy and reputation (section 13)

Section 13(a) of the Charter ensures that individuals are not subject to unlawful or arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence.

Clause 6(4) amends the Act to remove the current time considerations required to be taken into account when determining permanency objectives by repealing existing sections 167(3), (4) and (5).

Clause 8 amends section 276A(2)(d)(i) to ensure that the timeframe connected with the Secretary providing advice to the Court regarding the making of a care by Secretary order lines up with the extended timeframe for the making of family reunification orders by changing the reference to 12 months to a reference to 24 months

Clauses 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 amend the period of time for which the Children’s Court can make and extend a family reunification order, by allowing the court to make such an order for a period of time which could have the effect of placing the child in out of home care for up to 24 months, or more in specific circumstances (in which case it will be treated as if it were an extension to a Family Reunification Order), and then extend any such order for up to 12 months on each application for an extension. This was previously limited to a period of 12 months and 24 months in total in out of home care respectively.

The purpose of these amendments is to allow more time and flexibility for families to work towards family reunification where it remains in the child’s best interests, before another order type providing for long-term out of home care or permanent care is pursued. The amendments also provide the Children’s Court with more flexibility in making orders in the child’s best interests. The amendments also seek to highlight the primacy of the child’s best interests in making such decisions.

Acknowledging that delays in long-term decision-making can be harmful to children, clause 11 inserts new section 287B to provide a threshold for the court in determining whether to extend a family reunification order where a child has been in out of home care for longer than 24 months. This is intended to balance the need for stable and enduring arrangements for care and parental responsibility, against the need for greater flexibility for families to pursue reunification.

While the Bill authorises intervention into a family under a family reunification order (an order which confers responsibility for sole care of the child on the Secretary) for a longer period it does so subject to statutory requirements (including specified time limits, and the paramount consideration of the best interests of the child (section 10(1) of the Act). Without the amendments in the Bill, it is likely that children would be subject to other orders (such as care by secretary orders, permanent care orders or long-term care orders) which authorise similar or greater levels of intervention into families than family reunification orders.

I consider that the nature of the interferences authorised by the Bill in this instance are not new impacts, will be lawful and not arbitrary. They achieve an appropriate balance between the right to privacy and the right to protection of families and children.

Right to protection of families and children (section 17)

Section 17(1) of the Charter recognises that families are the fundamental group unit of society and are entitled to be protected by society and the State. Section 17(2) provides that every child has the right to such protection as is in their best interests and is needed by reason of being a child.

Clause 4 of the Bill amends the best interests principles by substituting section 10(3)(f) to provide that when determining whether a decision or action is in the best interests of the child, decision-makers must consider the child’s need for stability. This includes considering the desirability of four key elements identified as contributing to stability in a child’s life: continuity and stability in the child’s care, including stable and enduring arrangements for care and parental responsibility; physical stability; cultural stability and relational stability.

Clauses 5, 6 and 7 of the Bill update terminology in the Act to refer to stability instead of permanency.

These amendments, together with the amendments to the case plan objective of reunification and the timeframes for which a court can make or extend a family reunification order, will provide greater protection to families by allowing more discretion, time and flexibility to facilitate the reunification of a child with their parents. This is appropriately balanced by the amendments in the Bill which place greater emphasis on the importance of stability to the development and wellbeing of children, retaining and reinforcing the desirability of timely reunification with parents, where this is possible, before an order conferring parental responsibility on the Secretary or another person is pursued to ensure stability in the child’s care. Further, this is subject always to the principle that the best interests of the child are paramount.

Clause 6(2)(b) of the Bill provides for the repeal of section 167(1)(c) in the Act. The Act currently lists adoption as the third most preferable case planning objective for a child. This is now considered inappropriate in the context of a child protection system for reasons including that adoption permanently severs the connection to birth parents. The repeal of section 167(1)(c) of the Act promotes the right to protection of families and children by ensuring that case planning objectives under the Act are appropriate in the context of the purpose of the Act, including through prioritising case planning objectives which maintain a link to the child’s birth family.

Right to protection of cultural rights including Aboriginal cultural rights (section 19)

Section 19 of the Charter provides for the protection of cultural rights and outlines that people with particular cultural, religious, racial or linguistic backgrounds are not to be denied the right, with other people of that background, to enjoy their culture, to declare and practise their religion and use their languages. Section 19(2) of the Charter specifically details the distinct cultural rights of Aboriginal persons and that they must not be denied the right, with other members of their community, to enjoy their identity and culture, maintain and use their language, maintain their kinship ties, and maintain their distinctive spiritual, material and economic relationship with the land and waters and other resources with which they have a connection under traditional laws and customs.

Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Bill in replacing permanency with the concept of stability, particularly cultural, physical and relational stability, ensures the Act focuses on the maintenance of an ongoing connection to, understanding of and learning about, culture, family, tradition, language, religion, beliefs, values and stories. The protection under section 19 of the Charter is positively engaged by these amendments, including the protection of the distinct cultural rights of Aboriginal persons contained in section 19(2) of the Charter.

Clauses 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 also promote cultural rights by allowing longer timeframes to achieve family reunification in certain circumstances in the best interests of the child. The Yoorrook for Justice report recommended that the Victorian Government allow the Children’s Court to extend reunification timelines where it is in the child’s best interests to do so, in order to reduce the prevalence of Aboriginal child removal and impact on Aboriginal families.

Further, clause 6(2)(b) promotes section 19 of the Charter through ensuring the Secretary is prioritising objectives which maintain a link to the child’s birth family by removing adoption from the case plan objective hierarchy.

The Hon. Ben Carroll MP

Deputy Premier

Minister for Education

Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC

 Ben CARROLL (Niddrie – Minister for Education, Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC) (20:29): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I ask that my second-reading speech be incorporated into Hansard.

Incorporated speech as follows:

The Bill amends the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (the Act) to better support children and families to keep them together whenever it is safe to do so. The Bill incorporates significant reforms that are designed to promote the best interests of the child by maximising opportunities for safe, timely and sustainable reunification. The journey of reunification is unique to a family unit – each journey to reunify a child with their parents may take a different period of time.

The Bill places human rights at the centre of decision making, notably to promote and protect the family bond by keeping families together when it is in the child’s best interests to do so. The Bill achieves this by supporting the reunification of families and ensuring they have enough time to access the necessary supports to make the necessary changes for children to return to their parents.

The Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Permanent Care and Other Matters) Act 2014 (the Permanency Amendments) was introduced to provide children with certainty in their caring arrangements at an earlier stage. There is strong evidence which shows that this remains an important goal in the child protection system, as long-term uncertainty can have negative impacts on a child’s life.

However, the Permanency Amendments have been too inflexible and have disadvantaged some families. This is borne out in several reviews of the Permanency Amendments, including:

• The 2017 Safe and Wanted report released by the Commission for Children and Young People, which found that there are barriers (such as availability of services) to reunification and that reunification rates had declined since the Permanency Amendments.

• The 2022 Permanency Longitudinal Study highlighted unanticipated results and recommended further monitoring to ensure improved long-term outcomes for children.

• The 2023 Yoorrook for Justice report recommended that reunification timeframes be extended where it is in the child’s best interests to do so on the basis that current statutory timeframes had and are negatively impacting Aboriginal and other families.

The Permanency Amendments also introduced a hierarchy of case planning objectives, the third of which is adoption. Reviews and inquiries have made strong recommendations that adoption should never be a case planning goal within the child protection system, as it permanently severs a child’s legal relationship with their parents:

• Safe and Wanted found that the presence of adoption in the permanency hierarchy was a cause for community concern.

• The 2021 Legal and Social Issues Committee’s Inquiry into responses to historical forced adoption in Victoria recommended that adoption be removed from the permanency hierarchy and use of adoption on child protection grounds be restricted as far as possible.

The Victorian Government has taken these reviews into account and the views of many stakeholders that support families in the child protection system. The Bill responds to these reviews and community values by:

• Providing the Children’s Court with discretion and flexibility when making Family Reunification Orders, to provide families with additional time to work towards reunification, where this is in the child’s best interests;

• Removing adoption from the hierarchy of permanency objectives; and

• Substituting the term ‘permanency’ with ‘stability’ to strengthen the understanding of stability by the inclusion of key elements to consider in determining the best interests of the child.

Timelines for Family Reunification Orders

The Bill will remove strict time limits for children to reunify with their parents under family reunification orders. This change will implement recommendation 25 of the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Yoorrook for Justice report, which recommended that the Government “amend the Children, Youth and Families Act to allow the Children’s Court of Victoria to extend the timeframe of a Family Reunification Order where it is in the child’s best interest to do so”.

Currently, Family Reunification Orders can only apply for a maximum period of 24 months, with an initial period of up to 12 months and a single extension of up to 12 months available. The Bill will remove these arbitrary and inflexible barriers and enable the Court to permit families to continue pursuing reunification for as long as it remains in the child’s best interests to do so.

Under the reforms included in the Bill, the Court will now be able to issue an initial Family Reunification Order for up to 24 months since the child entered out of home care in most cases – or up to 12 months where the child has already spent more than 12 months in temporary care under interim orders. The Court will also be able issue extensions for these orders, when it is in the child’s best interests, for additional periods of up to 12 months, with no limitation on the number of extensions.

The decision to make or extend a Family Reunification Order will be based on what is in the best interests of the child or young person, according to the best interest principles set out in the Act. When considering whether the extension of a family reunification order is in the child’s best interests, the Court will be required to give consideration to:

• Any previous extension of the Family Reunification Order and the duration of each extension; and

• The extent to which a parent of the child has engaged with services and supports necessary for the safe reunification with the child; and

• Any circumstances that have impeded the progress of a parent’s safe reunification with the child including circumstances preventing timely access to services and supports necessary for reunification.

These changes will provide additional time for parents to take the steps needed to safely resume the care of their child or children, such as accessing health and other specialist services to address protective concerns, where this is in the child’s best interest. The extended initial period better reflects the time that some families require to access and realise the benefit from supports, noting that family reunification can and should occur at the earliest opportunity where safe to do so. This is an acknowledgment that there may be children and families with complex needs and may experience barriers accessing the support services they need and therefore, require further time to achieve reunification.

However, the Bill maintains appropriate focus on ensuring children receive certainty and stability at the earliest possible opportunity. The evidence is clear that long term instability has negative outcomes for children and the system cannot go back to the delays experienced prior to the Permanency Amendments. The additional considerations as part of the best interests test for Family Reunification Order extensions will ensure the Court keeps the impact of children’s time spent out of their parent’s care in the forefront of their minds, while ensuring that extensions can be provided in all situations where it is in the child’s best interests.

To ensure the system maintains the balance between flexibility and providing certainty for a child in a timely manner, the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing is implementing a new monitoring framework to provide system-level oversight of efforts towards family reunification. This will enable the department to monitor and assess the impact of the amendments on planning, decision-making and reunification timeframes.

Adoption

The Bill will remove adoption from the stability hierarchy in the Act. In Victoria, the Adoption Act 1984 sets out the legal requirements for adoption, including the principle of parental consent to adoption. The inclusion of adoption in the child protection system is inconsistent with this and there are significant community concerns about the presence of adoption within the child protection system in the context of the Stolen Generations and the history of forced adoptions.

Making this change responds directly to the recommendations from various reports, stakeholders and communities, particularly the 2021 report of the Parliamentary Committee Inquiry into responses to historical forced adoptions in Victoria. It will align Victorian legislation with longstanding policy and practice, which is that adoption is not proactively pursued or recommended by child protection in Victoria.

In addition to this change, the Government will undertake further work to reconsider other connections between the Adoption Act and the Children, Youth and Families Act, to more clearly differentiate between the adoption and child protection systems and reinforce Government policy that it is always inappropriate for the State to pursue adoption for children involved with child protection.

Consideration of stability

There have been unintended consequences of the use of the term ‘permanency’ in the Act. The use of the term ‘permanency’ has created a greater focus on final legal arrangements for care of a child and Permanent Care Orders specifically, rather than encompassing broader factors that support stability and security for children. The Bill reverts to the use of the term Stability in place of Permanency.

The Bill will amend the best interests principles to require decision makers to consider stability as a holistic concept, making clear that stability has multiple dimensions. It is intended that, in determining the best interests of the child, decision makers are to consider:

• The legal arrangements needed to ensure a child’s parent or direct caregiver has a lasting and legally secure relationship with the child. This is also known as ‘legal stability’.

• Physical stability, to reflect the desirability of stable living arrangements, which support a child’s connection to their community.

• Cultural stability, to reflect the desirability of the child maintaining an ongoing connection to, and understanding and learning of, culture, family, tradition, language, religion, beliefs, values and stories.

• Relational stability, to reflect the desirability of the child’s positive, loving, trusting and nurturing relationships and emotional connection with significant others, such as parents, siblings, friends, family and carers

These elements are to be applied concurrently and read together when making decisions in relation to a child. Further detail regarding these elements is contained within the Explanatory Memorandum.

Statutory Review

The Bill requires the Minister for Children to cause an independent review of the Bill after it has been in force for five years. The review will consider both the appropriateness of the legislative provisions and the success of their implementation. This will ensure there is an independent and transparent process to consider the impact of these reforms, following an appropriate period of operation. The monitoring framework will be used in the intervening period to assess the impact of the changes and enable Government to identify and respond to issues ahead of the independent review process.

I commend the Bill to the house.

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (20:29): I move:

That this debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered that debate be adjourned for two weeks. Debate adjourned until Wednesday 12 November.