Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Steve DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh – Minister for Environment, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, Minister for Outdoor Recreation) (16:21): I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The amendments to the Social Services Regulation Amendment (Child Safety, Complaints and Worker Regulation) Bill 2025 were moved by the government and passed by the Legislative Council. The amendments remove parts 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 of the bill and amend part 1 to reflect the purpose and commencement, which are impacted by removal of other parts. The removal of these parts of the bill omits the proposals to merge the functions of the disability services commissioner, the Victorian Disability Worker Commission and the Victorian disability worker registration board into the Social Services Regulator; to establish a complaints function; and to consolidate worker prohibition schemes across disability and out-of-home care.

Importantly, these sections of the bill responded to the rapid review into child safety, which called out that children in out-of-home care and children with disability are at a greater risk of abuse and therefore need more joined-up systems and better oversight. Recommendation 8.1 of the rapid review said that common foundations across social services and disability were needed to ensure better safeguarding for these children. However, members of the coalition, the crossbench and the Greens did not support these sections of the bill, so the government was forced to remove them to progress the rest of the reform in the bill. The government regretfully moved these amendments due to the lack of support from the coalition, Greens and members of the crossbench because, as the Premier said, ‘The safety of children is my highest priority and the highest priority for the government.’

As such, the bill still contains the following important reforms: reforming the reportable conduct scheme and transferring it, along with the Commissioner for Children and Young People’s remit for the child safe standards, into the Social Services Regulator; two, reforming the working with children check scheme and transferring this function and the NDIS worker screening function into the Social Services Regulator; three, amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, including in relation to specialist disability accommodation. In essence, these amendments maintain the existing silos which disability entities exist within with the same powers which they have exercised to only prohibit five workers this year and respond to seven of the 69 complaints they have received. The government listened to the coalition, the Greens and the crossbench that they wanted the status quo to be maintained, and so while we are disappointed, we thank and acknowledge the many stakeholders that got in touch to say these aspects of the bill could not be delayed.

 Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (16:23): I think the minister at the table just gave a good summary, and I think we need to recap why we have arrived at this particular point in time on this bill. It comes back with some very, very big amendments. The merger of the disability complaints and oversight services into the Social Services Regulator has been completely removed. A similar bill sat between chambers for 18 months. For 18 months it sat there because the government and the minister knew it was unpopular with the sector – for what other reason would you not bring it on? They then withdrew that bill and reintroduced it into a bigger bill to try and sneak it through. They reintroduced it into a bigger bill, knowing that we would support those reforms. They tried to get it through that way, and it was done with 24 hours notice to the chamber. We got the bill less than 24 hours before we were asked to stand up and talk. There was clear opposition from a great cohort within the disability sector. How this transpired was that we indicated we would move a motion to split this bill. When it was clear to the minister that we had the numbers to do that, the minister took the option of moving house amendments to withdraw those elements.

The upper house crossbench is a fairly diverse group; I think everyone would agree with that. It is not very often you get the Liberals, the Nationals and all of the crossbench on the same page, and the reason they are on the same page is because this is flawed policy. The minister had to back right down after getting it so wrong, and the reason was not doing the consultation. I am shortly going to run through some of the organisations that opposed this. The minister and her parliamentary secretary, the member for Greenvale, who is here in the chamber, said that they consulted extensively. This is not true. Of those that did provide feedback, a large cohort were not listened to. These are the advocacy and disability representative groups, not the service providers. The minister in the other place stood up and provided a letter of those that supported these amendments, but they were all service providers. It is service providers and their staff that are the subject of the complaints. That is not a blight on the great workers that we have in the sector that do a good job, but, as the disability royal commission showed, there are some issues amongst the workforce. To stand up and say, ‘We’ve got the support of the sector’ and hand over a letter of all the service providers, who are going to be investigated, is just ridiculous.

The other point I want to make is that the minister spoke about a number of groups that were consulted, but a number of those groups indicated to me in correspondence that they were consulted about how this merger would be implemented. They were not consulted on whether they wanted this in the first place. The consultation consisted of ‘We’re going to merge the services into the Social Services Regulator, and we want to consult with you on how we’re going to do it.’ That is not consultation. The consultation has got to come back to the starting point.

It is also not in line with the royal commission recommendations. When the royal commission into disability recommendations were released, the government spokesperson said that they:

… welcome the opportunity to work closely with people with disability throughout the implementation of our response to the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission.

Those are great words, except the government did not do that. The pertinent recommendation, 11.3, was to establish or maintain an independent one-stop shop complaint reporting, referral and support mechanism to receive reports of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with a disability. This infers a standalone entity. It does not recommend merging the complaints services into a bigger umbrella organisation. The minister has been caught out. We now say to the minister: go back and do what you should have done in the first place, consult with those groups that represent those with a disability, listen to them and let them mould this framework, as the disability royal commission says that they should.

I want to go back to some of the comments from the minister and the member for Greenvale, the parliamentary secretary in this place, who said that consultation on this issue was exhaustive. Here are some of the groups that say they were not consulted with or did not agree with the final proposal that was put forth in the bill: the Association of Employees with Disability Legal Centre and the Association for Children with Disability, a big group representing the peak body within Victoria. The Australian Education Union opposed this. Here is what the Australian Education Union said:

[QUOTES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Reversing the proposed abolition or merger of the Victorian Disability Workers Commission and the office of the Victorian Disability Worker Commission is not something we support.

They support reversing the proposed abolition or merger of the Disability Worker Registration Board of Victoria. This is the education union. They further said:

To this end, we are supportive of amendments being considered by the Nationals. These amendments are essential to protecting the integrity of disability services in Victoria and ensuring that people with a disability continue to receive safe, high-quality support.

The Barwon Disability Resource Council is not supportive. The Blind Citizens of Australia is not supportive. Brain Injury Matters is not supportive. Deaf Victoria is not supportive. Blind Victoria is not supportive, and Disability Advocacy Victoria is not supportive of these changes.

Disability Advocacy Victoria is the peak body for independent advocacy organisations in Victoria. They said:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

There remain significant areas of concern for us to go to the heart of the government’s understanding of the needs, rights and interests of Victorians with a disability.

The Disability Discrimination Legal Service opposed these changes. Here is what they said – this is not me; this is the Disability Discrimination Legal Service:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

The government’s false claims in relation to this legislation are disturbing and seem designed to thwart the disability community and put the safety of its members in jeopardy through providing incorrect information to parliamentarians and the wider community in order to force us to access a regulator which we do not support, which has minimal, if any, knowledge of the disability culture. I suggest strongly this bill is withdrawn and your government does what it keeps claiming it has already done but has not, and that is consult with the disability sector community. Please note the disability service providers do not in any way, shape or form represent the disability community and indeed have been heavily involved in subjecting them to abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation on occasions, as per the disability royal commission report.

Another group that opposed it – we are up to number 11 – is Disability Justice Australia. Here is what they said:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

The disability community was given no notice of this, which in itself is extremely disturbing, as was the comment by Iwan Walters, Parliamentary Secretary for Disability, who incorrectly claimed in Parliament that the disability sector had been consulted ‘exhaustively’.

Disabled People’s Organisations Victoria – organisation number 12 that opposed this – said:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

An informal suggestion that there be, within the social services regulator function, a dedicated associate regulator responsible for disability does not address some of the key issues of concern we hold about the proposed changes.

They went on to say:

We propose that a disability-led review of disability service regulation is commissioned, a review that would be informed by the findings of the royal commission. This review should precede any further decisions regarding the absorption of disability regulators into the SSR.

The Disability Resources Centre, or Disability Rights and Culture, opposed this move, saying:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

We’re extraordinarily frustrated by the lack of consultation.

First Step Legal opposed this. Grampians DisAbility Advocacy opposed this. Here is what the Health and Community Services Union, HACSU, had to say:

The health and community services union is appalled at the Allan government’s bill. Without consultation, without transparency and without any regard for the voices of disability workers or people with a disability, the government has moved to dismantle the very safeguards it once claimed were essential to safety, accountability and professional respect in the sector.

This is HACSU. The state secretary Paul Healey, said:

The Allan government has once again abandoned people with disabilities and disability workers. This is a slap in the face to every worker who has fought for safety, dignity, and professionalism in this sector, and shows that this government has lost touch with its Labor values …

HACSU demands that the Allan government immediately withdraw these amendments and undertake full consultation with disability workers, unions and people with disability before making any changes to the existing regulatory framework.

Do we still think that this had widespread support?

Number 18 – cop this one – is Labor Enabled. We got a letter from Labor Enabled. Labor Enabled are the card-carrying members of the Labor Party with disability. Here is what Labor Enabled had to say:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

This bill represents a profound betrayal of Labor values. It undermines the independence, accountability and hard-fought rights of people with a disability in Victoria –

this is from Labor Party members.

There has been a total lack of genuine consultation. At no time has Labor Enabled Victoria been contacted to engage in a meaningful consultation process. Disability advocacy groups, the very people and organisations who live by the principle ‘nothing about us without us’, have been clear and united in their message: the sector needs a standalone, independent complaints body –

it seems the minister is the only one not hearing this message –

… not one buried in a broader social services structure where disability voices will again be sidelined.

On my comments – they watched my speech in this chamber a couple of weeks ago – they said:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

It’s a damning indictment that Labor-enabled Victoria finds itself agreeing with these words.

When even our political opponents are articulating what our own government refuses to hear, something has gone badly wrong.

Group 19 that opposed this: Leadership Plus, a disability housing organisation. Group 20, Melbourne East Disability Advocacy, opposed this. The Mental Health Legal Centre opposed it. Here is what the Mental Health Legal Centre had to say:

The proposed takeover risks diluting the focus of disability regulation and undermining its ability to provide dedicated advocacy and oversight. The Social Services Regulator, while important in its own right, does not possess the same depth of specialist knowledge nor the direct connection to disability communities that the current regulators have carefully built over the years.

So, member for Greenvale, if your consultation was exhaustive, as you put it –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): Through the Chair.

Tim BULL: If the member for Greenvale’s consultation was exhaustive, as he termed it, this would indicate that is not the case. But if they were spoken to, then they did not listen, because these are the groups that do not want it: group 22, Northern Community Legal Centre; group 23, Occupational Therapy Society for Invisible Disabilities; Regional Disability Advocacy Service, group 24; and number 25, Rights Information and Advocacy Centre. They said:

[QUOTES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Our concerns remain about the appropriateness of placing disability regulation under the SSR and the lack of genuine engagement with respect for disability representative organisations leading the government to the flawed decisions it’s made.

Group 26, Southwest Advocacy Association; Southern Disability Advocacy; Star Victoria; Tandem Carers; VALID, the Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability, another peak body – one of several peak bodies that I have read out. Here is what VALID had to say:

Consultation on these changes has been selective and inadequate, and has failed to include Victoria’s disabled people’s organisations and disability peak bodies –

it was meant to be exhaustive –

who have the authority to speak on behalf of people with disabilities.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service opposed it, and Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council, Women’s Legal Service Victoria, Women With Disabilities Victoria, Working Women’s Centre Victoria, Youth Disability Advocacy Service. With this exhaustive consultation either they were not listening or they did not get the email, I am afraid.

I say to the minister – that is not all the groups, by the way – clearly you have not consulted with an enormous cohort of the disability sector: not service providers, those that get investigated. Those that represent disability groups, either through advocacy or membership of those with disabilities, are the ones that need to be consulted, the ones that need to shape and mould this, as the disability royal commission indicated. So we need to now go back to them and let them shape this, and when we bring this back into the chamber, let us not come back with another piece of flawed legislation jammed in a wider omnibus bill. Let us debate it, standalone, on its merits. There is a lot of consultation to be done over the December, January, February and maybe even into March period. But the disability sector is quite rightly exceptionally disappointed with how this has been handled. It has not been handled well.

I have been here for a little while – there are others that have been here for a lot longer than I have – but I do not think I have seen a bill come in that has been so poorly shaped, when the initial guideline was to consult with the sector. I do not think I have come across a bill in my long three terms, unfortunately as a shadow minister, that has generated the level of opposition and genuine angst from a sector – and we are talking about the disability sector. What was put forth is not in line with the findings of the royal commission. It is not in line with what the disability sector wanted, and the minister knew this. That is why it sat between chambers for 18 months and was not progressed. There is no other reason a bill sits between chambers for 18 months. The reason is because it has got problems. But what do we do? Do we use that 18 months to go and engage in the genuine consultation that is required and needed? Do we use that time? ‘No, no, no. We’ll just sit on it, do nothing, and then we will jam it into an omnibus bill with a whole heap of things that the opposition won’t be able to vote down because they’re going to have to support the other elements.’

Did the minister not think we would split the bill? Did the minister think we would cop this, when it sat between the chambers for 18 months because it was flawed, and just wave it through? When you have got groups like the HACSU and the education union – Labor enabled – the upper house crossbench, every one of them and everyone else saying this is no good, it is a blight on this government and this minister that they tried to push this through in a bigger bill.

I know that the honourable member for Eildon wants to speak, so I will pull up stumps on that. But for goodness sake, Minister, take one message away from this absolute disaster you have overseen. This is not a problem that is that difficult to solve. This is a structure that we can put in place as a Parliament if we work together and work with the sector. It is not a tough one to solve. There have been a lot tougher issues solved in this place than this predicament we are facing now. Please go away and do the consultation. As I have said right through this process, if you want to tackle this in a manner whereby we sit down and have a yarn about what the best model or method is and include us in discussions to get a better outcome for those in Victoria that have special needs, the most vulnerable in our community, the offer is there; it has been there for 18 months. Let us do it this time, and let us get it right.

 Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (16:42): I rise to speak on the amendments that are on the table, and I do so with some deep misgiving. I note that they were moved by the government in the upper house, but I think they lessen this bill. They lessen the bill that is on the table. They mean that while some children will have better protection from those who seek to do harm and those who we have seen do harm, others will not. Others will still exist in a system that is profoundly fragmented from a regulatory perspective, where there is no single door, a system where the Disability Services Commission will receive 69 complaints in a year and all but seven of those will be deemed out of its scope and it will refer them onto others, highlighting the profound confusion that exists for the most vulnerable Victorians in our system at the moment.

I also profoundly disagree with the characterisation of the process that the shadow minister the member for Gippsland East has put forward. I do not doubt his passion for these issues. I do profoundly disagree with his assessment of the process and also his characterisation of the consultation that has taken place.

Cindy McLeish interjected.

Iwan WALTERS: The member for Eildon no doubt will make her contribution shortly, but this is the time that I am allocated.

The bill sought to unify the regulatory framework and to bring it together in the Social Services Regulator, in fulfilment of recommendation 8.1 of the rapid review, which said that common foundations across social services and disability were needed to ensure better safeguarding for children. However, members of the coalition, the crossbench and the Greens did not support these clauses of the bill, so we removed them. I am not surprised to see the Greens and some of the crossbench being so wholeheartedly committed on a kind of Brezhnev ossification of regulatory settings where nothing changes and the purity of the institution and perhaps the title of the institution rather than the outcome, rather than the efficacy of the regulatory framework itself and its capacity to work for people with a disability in our state and other vulnerable Victorians. That is what the bill sought to do, not in an underhanded way but in a way that sought to bring together regulatory functions into the SSR, where disability would have a very significant place through an associate regulator role.

I do not propose to rehash the entirety of my second-reading contribution, but I do note that the bill still contains some important reforms. It reforms the reportable conduct scheme and transfers it, along with the Commission for Children and Young People’s remit for the child safe standards, into the Social Services Regulator. It reforms the working with children check scheme and transfers this function and the NDIS worker screening function into the Social Services Regulator.

But in essence, these amendments maintain those existing silos for people with a disability and in which disability regulatory entities exist with the same powers that, as I say, they have exercised to only respond to seven of the 69 complaints that they have received. This is clearly profoundly problematic. It is indicative of the difficulty with which Victorians with disability, their families and their carers engage with the regulatory system.

The member for Gippsland East talks about a lot of things. He talks about consultation. He also talks about the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. The bill, as it stood, would have established a dedicated complaints mechanism for social services users within the independent Social Services Regulator, which would have aligned with the royal commission’s recommendation for an independent one-stop shop for people with a disability. We are not doing that today. We are retaining a fragmented and siloed system, which I would contend diminishes the safeguards for people with disability in Victoria.

The member for Gippsland East also talks about consultation. I do not think it is especially edifying to engage in a tit for tat game of who has spoken to whom and to often, in some respects, seek to verbal people. But the member for Gippsland East talks about consultation. The government listened to the coalition, the Greens and the crossbench. They noted that they wanted the status quo to be maintained. While we were disappointed, we also thanked and acknowledge the many stakeholders who got in touch to say that these aspects of the bill could not be and should not be delayed. Many stakeholders recognised that the bill, as it initially stood in the Legislative Council, would have increased the clarity for people with disability, simplified and streamlined the regulatory framework and assisted to keep Victorian children with disability safer from harm. I will list them: the Association for Children with Disability, National Disability Services, Down Syndrome Victoria, the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare – whom the shadow minister knows full well wrote a very powerful and compelling letter explaining precisely why these reforms were needed – Australian Childhood Foundation, Mallee Family Care, Anglicare, Child and Family Services Ballarat, UnitingCare, Permanent Care and Adoptive Families, Catholic Social Services Victoria, MacKillop Family Services, Odyssey Victoria, Access Health and Community, FamilyCare, Safe Steps, Kids First Australia, CREATE Foundation, Yooralla, Berry Street, Melba Support Services, Able Australia, Alkira, Gateways Support Services, Golden City Support Services, Grace Professional Services, Kids Plus Disability Services, Scope Australia, MiLife-Victoria, Pinarc, the Bridge, Wallara, Early Childhood Intervention Australia Victoria/Tasmania, Amaze and the list goes on.

I am profoundly disappointed in many respects that these amendments are here. They go in the face of the Leader of the Opposition’s comments when this bill was debated in this place the first time. Ms Wilson, the Leader of the Opposition, said:

Families have been calling for a consistent approach to worker regulation across disability and social services for many years.

She called it ‘overdue reform’, but she has been rolled by those in her party room and the shadow spokesman, and in the process, people with a disability retain a fragmented regulatory framework. That is what is on the table today.

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (16:48): I have been in this place for some time now, the same amount of time as the member for Gippsland East, and some things are almost a first. I would say this comes pretty close. We have got now a bill before us. The amendments have come back. This particular bill has gone to the upper house, and it has come back. Now, that is not in itself unusual, but what is unusual are the changes being made to the disability complaints and oversight bodies. Eighteen months ago a bill was brought into this place, and it became a little bit hard for the government, so they sat on it between houses for 18 months. That in itself is fairly extraordinary. That speaks volumes, that it sat there for 18 months. Clearly there was a problem.

I had to pinch myself almost listening to what the member for Greenvale was talking about. He said he disagreed with comments that were made by the member for Gippsland East, the shadow minister, who did point out a number of the problems and the flaws and the fact that this sat between houses for 18 months because the process did not work. The process was not what it should be. The member for Greenvale seemed to think that it was. But I will tell you, in all my time here to have something sit between houses for 18 months is one thing – so the bill was sitting between houses, and then what the government decided was to bring in a voluminous bill, one of the biggest that I have seen in my time. Gosh, it is nearly 5 centimetres thick, possibly more. In that bill they slipped in some of the changes that they wanted to make with regard to the disability sector.

They slipped it in and thought that as it is such a big fat document that we were not going to notice. People working in the disability sector and the opposition, they thought, would not notice that in this big fat bill, which contains some very important elements, and they just slipped these in. Lo and behold, what happened? It is still a problem. During those 18 months that they had it sitting between houses, you would think they might have learned and made some of the relevant changes, but in fact they did not. They have just slipped them into another bill to try and see if they can get these through.

What they slipped them in with were a lot of really important child safety amendments. The child safety amendments were so overdue. We have known that there are problems, for six years or so, in this area, as in 2019 the commissioner for children Liana Buchanan warned about problems with the working with children check. She warned that the current legislation was limiting and stopped her from passing on information that was so important that it would have seen somebody lose their working with children check. What happened? These changes did not get made. The government ignored it. It took, in 2022, an Ombudsman’s report into a matter of sexual assault – a pretty horrible matter of sexual assault, actually. That report exposed a whole bunch of shortfalls in Victoria’s working with children check scheme. In 2022 that report was tabled, on top of something that happened in 2019 and comments made by the children’s commissioner, so we knew that these things were so overdue and had to get through. The government, true to form, put something forward that they knew that we would absolutely need to support, because these changes to the working with children checks need to be made because we have too many issues of failures in the system. The allegation in the Ombudsman’s report is around a particular individual where the system in place did not prevent him from obtaining a working with children clearance and permitted him to work with vulnerable children and young people, and that was one of the worst possible outcomes that happened.

The Ombudsman noted at the time that the powers of Victoria’s screening authority are among the most limited in Victoria. In 2022, three years ago – and three years on top of those comments made by the children’s commissioner – the Ombudsman at the time Deborah Glass found a particular data breach was facilitated by inadequate privacy measures put in place by the department, which had failed to audit access to the information system despite multiple warnings. So up until 2022, they had had multiple warnings. The government were so behind the eight ball here that they had to then act hastily. They have acted so terribly slowly, but they made it look as though this had to be done quickly because there had been another horrible instance of abuse in the early childhood sector – some of the worst. It plays out every single day, and we know that the government have stuffed this up for such a long period. So we have had these exceptionally important changes that needed to be made in relation to children’s safety, and the government had known about these ones that needed to be made. The Ombudsman had previously called on the Attorney-General and the Department of Justice and Community Safety – they are the ones that administer the working with children check – to consider much-needed amendments.

We knew, because of the government’s failures, that these were important. We knew that they were important. At the same time, we understood that the government had issues trying to get their legislation through, the social services regulation changes regarding the disability complaints and oversights body. We knew that that had been parked between houses.

True to form, the government tried to slip one in and hope we did not notice. But they did not understand the depth of the situation, the depth of the problem that sat before them – surprisingly because it had sat between houses for 18 months – and they had a second go at it. We looked at it and talked to the crossbench and talked extensively to the sector, the providers, the groups that have an interest in this area. The member for Gippsland East did an enormous amount of work, and he outlined very eloquently the multiple groups within the disability area who had problems with this. When they had issues and the crossbench had issues and we had issues the only option was to look at splitting the bill, and that was going to be a major embarrassment to the government.

Instead of that major embarrassment, we have got this major embarrassment where the bill has come back to us with some very, very big amendments. The merger of the disability complaints and oversights bodies with the Social Services Regulator has been completely removed. It has been scrapped completely. I just find that appalling. The government now is going to have to have another crack at this, probably the third crack at it, which is going to take time. Let us look at early next year and let us give them the benefit of the doubt that they might get this through in March. That will be two years that they have not been able to bring about changes to the disability sector that they want. The government should have their heads between their tails. They have absolute disrespect and disregard for those in the disability sector.

So many groups have had problems: Deafblind Victoria, Deaf Victoria, disability advocacy groups, Brain Injury Matters, Blind Citizens Australia, the Barwon Disability Resource Council, Disability Justice Australia, Disabled People’s Organisations of Victoria, Disability Discrimination Legal Service, Leadership Plus, Melbourne East Disability Advocacy, Mental Health Legal Centre – the list goes on. The shadow minister outlined a lot of their concerns, and I applaud him for that. Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council and the Women’s Legal Service Victoria – these are people who would normally stand with the government but are standing against them here. The government have a serious amount of work to do, and they should hang their heads in shame. It is going to take them two years to try and make some changes. I am pleased to see that these amendments have been made.

Motion agreed to.

The SPEAKER: A message will now be sent to the Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.