Thursday, 10 February 2022

Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Mr LEANE:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (20:25): It is good to rise to make a contribution on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. At the outset I should indicate that the opposition parties will not be opposing this bill. It is an omnibus bill and does a whole range of things, many of which I hope will have a positive impact.

The purpose of this bill really rests upon three pillars—so says the government, and I concur—which are modernising the legislative framework by decreasing the over-representation of Indigenous children in our care system, an incredibly important thing; implementing the Home Stretch program, a program that has always enjoyed and continues to enjoy the most fulsome bipartisan support; and shifting in some small ways from a crisis management response in our child protection system to one of earlier intervention. These are all good things.

The amendments to the principal act include, well, many, and I will mention only a few: incorporating further Aboriginal child placement principles into the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005; extending the secretary’s powers to provide advice and assistance if there is significant concern for the wellbeing of an unborn child; amendments relating to the use of seclusion in secure welfare services; and amendments relating to childcare arrangements, and those are under the Children, Youth and Families Act of 2005 as well. As I say, this is an omnibus bill, and there are many other changes, some of them minor and technical, that I do not think necessarily need to be remarked upon by me now, given that they were broached and unpacked in some detail in the other place.

This ongoing process of modernising the legislative framework of our child protection system is a positive one. It was commenced when the Liberals and Nationals were last in government from 2010 to 2014, and many of the positive changes that will be enacted when this bill passes—I have no doubt of that—stem from the work that started in that period.

Important stakeholders across our child protection and family services systems have been calling for legislative change in Victoria to improve the transition for young people leaving out-of-home care for a long time. New reporting shows that 54 per cent of young care leavers in Victoria, for example, experience homelessness within four years. As a consequence of some of the really poor outcomes we have seen for young people leaving the care system over a long period of time the government, to its credit, recently launched the Home Stretch program to provide young people with support to transition into adulthood once leaving out-of-home care. It is worth underscoring that this is a program that enjoys the most fulsome bipartisan support. The program applies to young people up to the age of 21 and provides an accommodation allowance, casework, employment and other wellbeing supports. What this bill seeks to do is to give force to this program, which is strongly supported, like I say, not only around this chamber but by the sector.

In addition, and as I have already touched upon, the over-representation of Indigenous children in our child protection system is a longstanding issue and a growing concern. One in 10 Indigenous children in Victoria is in the care of the state tonight. This bill takes some steps, some small steps, in the right direction, the direction of giving greater powers to our Indigenous-led organisations, and there are many wonderful Indigenous-led organisations in our state. The government recently entered into an Aboriginal children and families agreement, and part of this agreement entails facilitating autonomy and self-determination among Aboriginal groups. As part of this, the bill seeks to endow Aboriginal organisations with greater power to enable Aboriginal children to be reunited with their families where it is appropriate to do that.

There are very few concerns that my colleagues and I have with this bill, and yet there are one or two. Members of the chamber are aware that a little later, perhaps when we next sit, I will move just one amendment. That amendment will seek to deal with an issue that many organisations have brought to my attention, including the Law Institute of Victoria, many women’s legal services and also Indigenous legal services. It is regarding the time frame for filing emergency care applications. Currently the act requires that the application must be heard as soon as practicable and within one working day, and what the government seeks to do through this legislation is to double that time period. The effect of the proposed change is to extend and expand that time period in which the secretary must produce any evidence or justify in any way the removal of a child. As the Law Institute of Victoria says, under this bill that time frame in some circumstances will be able to be extended out to up to six days. I would like to quote briefly from a document that was provided to me by the law institute and also to the government—my understanding is that this is now a public document. The law institute said its members:

… routinely appear in cases before the Children’s Court where, once a parent or child has had the opportunity to present their case, the Court determines that the removal of the child is not warranted nor does it meet the threshold requirement of unacceptable risk. The extended period for filing coupled with the removal of the requirement for a bail justice hearing, risks extremely worrying and unjust outcomes for children resulting from an unwarranted removal and extended period out of parental care. It is likely to lead to the physical and emotional impact of forced weaning of breast-fed babies, and for older children, potentially causing irreparable harm in the form of separation anxiety and attachment issues with potentially lifelong consequences.

This is from the Law Institute of Victoria. The paper goes on to say:

We submit that this change contained in the Bill is extremely ill-considered as it prioritises the workload of the Child Protection workforce in preparing their case, over the rights of the child and parents to a fair judicial process within the shortest time available to ensure a child is only removed in accordance with law.

I have stated in this place and elsewhere on many occasions my deep admiration for Victoria’s child protection workers. Many people in this place recently have been waxing lyrical about the extraordinary job of our healthcare workers over the period of the pandemic, and they have every reason to do so. Quite frankly I cannot think of a workforce that is more essential and I cannot think of a workforce that does more important work with such high stakes, and so I will never be critical of our child protection workers. Nonetheless my view is the same as the view of the Law Institute of Victoria—that in seeking to make this change what we are doing is putting the rights of children behind workload considerations and concerns for child protection workers. If child protection workers need to be provided more resources to enable them to efficaciously prepare documentation, well then, fine, the government should go ahead and do that. However, we must always put the rights of children first.

There are one or two other concerns that the law institute raises and that, again, numerous other bodies have raised with me. After I had made some public statements about my concerns regarding this bill, I was very pleased to receive further invitations to discuss these matters from the minister’s office, and in those discussions I was convinced that the government is cognisant of these concerns and keen to allay them through non-legislative means. Nonetheless I will briefly put those concerns on the record.

The second one is regarding clause 68—the care of a suitable person—and broadly speaking my concern is regarding a decrease in discretion. Again, in the interests of brevity, I may simply quote from the Law Institute of Victoria. The institute said:

The proposed change seeks to remove the discretion of the Court to make orders in the best interests of the child in accordance with the well-established paramountcy principle, and is therefore inconsistent with Section 10(3) of the Act.

It goes on to provide examples of negative outcomes that may flow from this change. It also is likely to lead to unfair outcomes and is disempowering, especially to young parents or parents with a disability, who may live with their grandparent or other relative and where some limited aspects of their care of the child may require the supervision of that relative. In the committee stage in particular I will be interested to have some discussions with the relevant minister about ways to mitigate the potential impact of that change.

Finally, numerous bodies wanted to speak with me about concerns regarding clause 60 and the expansion of proof. The Law Institute of Victoria says on this matter:

Clause 60 of the Bill extends the circumstances under which a finding can be made under the Act that a child is in need of protection to include any circumstance of when a parent is unable to protect a child, as well as the current circumstances that only allow for a finding of proof when a parent has not protected or is unlikely to protect.

I was pleasingly informed by the government that some of the eventualities that the law institute had spoken with me about and, I understand, the government about and some of the eventualities that in particular women’s legal services had spoken with me about and, I understand, the government about were not intended to be covered whatsoever by this change. Nonetheless I will have some discussions in the committee stage with the relevant minister.

So broadly speaking, the three overarching elements of this bill, the three elements that the minister highlighted in his second-reading speech, are elements that on this side of the house we care deeply about. We must shift our child protection system further and further towards early intervention. We must make sure that we take meaningful steps to reduce the shocking over-representation of Indigenous young people in our child protection system, and of course, as I say, there is full-throated and wholehearted bipartisan support for the notion that further support needs to be provided for those leaving our care system. For those reasons, whilst I will move at a later stage of our discussions one amendment to seek to retain the status quo when it comes to emergency protection orders, this bill will have the support of the opposition parties.

Dr RATNAM: I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. This bill is making some significant amendments to our child protection system. Many of these reforms are reasonable improvements and have been welcomed by the sector. However, there are a few provisions of concern. I wanted to thank the many individuals and organisations across the sector who reached out to my office with their concerns about the bill, including the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Women’s Legal Service Victoria, the Law Institute of Victoria and Star Victoria. In fact many of the organisations I heard from had very similar concerns, and they all felt that this bill had been brought before the Parliament very quickly and that there had been extremely limited sector consultation on the bill. It is disappointing to hear that, especially as it is not surprising. I am frequently contacted by sector groups who are dismayed that a new piece of legislation has been introduced with no notice or engagement. Even where consultation is done, it often seems to only be on the surface level, and the very real concerns raised by sector groups are not addressed by the resulting legislation. It is even more disappointing with this bill, which was introduced into this place in October, giving the government the whole summer to go back to the drawing board on the problematic clauses and work with the sector to improve the legislation. Yet that is what we are debating today—it is exactly what was introduced last year.

There are a number of sensible reforms in this bill. In particular it is really good to see the codification of the Home Stretch program, which helps young people transition out of care into adulthood and provides support up to the age of 21. We know that care and support should not just be cut off the second a person turns 18. The Greens have been calling for this change for years and took it as an important policy proposal to the 2018 election, and we are really pleased to see this put into law today. However, it is concerning that a number of the amendments in the bill seem to miss the purpose of this legislation, which is to protect and act in the best interests of the child. We have heard serious concerns from across the sector that elements of the bill will have serious impacts on already disadvantaged families and parents and will accelerate the permanent removal of children.

One of the most concerning changes in this bill relates to the extension of time for an application for an emergency care order to be heard by the Children’s Court. Currently after a child has been taken into emergency care the department must appear before the Children’s Court the next working day or before a bail justice if the child is taken into protective custody on a Friday or weekend or public holiday. The bill proposes to extend this to two working days or the next working day if on a weekend. The sector has rightly been alarmed at this change. Removing a child from parental care is one of the most extreme actions within the child protection system and is incredibly traumatic for and harmful to a child.

The court provides a really important check on the use of the emergency care orders, ensuring that there is some external scrutiny on the removal of a child from a home, but the new time frames mean that the secretary will not have to produce any evidence or justify the removal of a child from parental care for days. For example, if a child is taken into care on a Thursday, then the court will not need to hear an application until the Monday. I have heard that more often than not the court finds that the removal of a child was not justified and does not meet the unacceptable risk standard in the act, and the child is returned to parental care. Extending these time frames seems like it will only exacerbate the already considerable harm done to a child who is removed from the family home. This is particularly concerning because it appears that a key motivation seems to be to allow the department more time to prepare its case before appearing before the court. If the child protection workforce is struggling with the one-day time frame, then surely the answer is to increase departmental funding and worker training and support, not to extend the time frames for really important judicial oversight.

We have also heard concerns around the new provisions that limit the types of interim accommodation orders that can be made. The bill provides that an interim accommodation order cannot be made if the order is made to the parent but also requires that another person provides a supervisory role. Instead the order must be made to the supervising person so that they have primary care of the child instead. We have heard from the sector that this will limit the discretion of the court in making orders in the best interests of the child and it will have a disproportionate effect on families who are already vulnerable and need additional support. There are many instances where another person, such as a family member, may be involved in the care of a child and where it might be appropriate to issue a care order that keeps the child with the family but requires another person to assist—for example, where a young parent is caring for a child with the support of grandparents or where a parent with a disability may need extra help and support. Yet this amendment appears to prevent such orders from being made, instead requiring that if there is another person providing a supervisory role the care order must be made in their name instead.

I have heard this means that the parent will no longer be able to access parenting payments through Centrelink as they no longer have primary custody of the child. For a parent who is already struggling, the loss of these payments can be the difference between keeping a roof over their head or affording food for the week, and worryingly it also begins the clock towards permanent removal of the child. Once a child is removed from parental care the statutory time frame for permanent removal begins—starting the clock ticking towards the child being permanently separated from their family—which means this bill actually has measures that would accelerate the permanent removal of children. These changes are also likely to disproportionately affect families that are already vulnerable, such as parents with a disability or First Nations families, the latter of which is extremely disappointing as these amendments are completely out of line with the government’s commitments to Closing the Gap and its commitment to reverse the over-representation of First Nations children in out-of-home care. Given we are here debating a bill designed to better protect children from harm and to prioritise the best interests of the child, the government really needs to go back to the drawing board on this provision, which will have the opposite effect.

The bill is also making amendments to the role of Aboriginal community controlled organisations by expanding the role of Aboriginal agencies within the child protection system. However, I am not sure that it is appropriate to describe what is simply the delegation of existing powers as self-determination. Given the ACCOs’ expanded role within the child protection system still requires working within the rules and confines of the current system, it is disappointing that the government seems to have missed an opportunity to consult more fully with Aboriginal organisations on these provisions and to more fully empower First Nations communities. It is also disappointing that this bill contains no statement of recognition that ACCOs have been advocating for the inclusion of such a statement in the act to acknowledge the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system and to provide binding guidance for decision-making regarding Aboriginal children. I would really encourage the government to continue working with ACCOs and First Nation stakeholders in the development of this statement and look forward to seeing this introduced into legislation in the near future.

This bill is also introducing no-fault language to the act to include the term ‘unable to protect’ in the list of grounds for protective intervention so that a child may be found in need of protection where a parent has been unable to protect the child from harm. I understand that the intention is not to create a new ground but to remove fault-finding language from the current ground and to recognise a fuller range of instances where a child may need protection. However, the sector has raised really important concerns that these amendments will actually put responsibility on the family violence survivor to protect their children from violence rather than holding the perpetrator to account. These reforms really need to go hand in hand with more funding for support services, for the child protection system and for family violence services. I would encourage the government to work closely with the sector as these changes are implemented to ensure that the new language does not end up being used against survivors of family violence.

The Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 is an odd piece of legislation, as you have one part governing the child protection system and another part focused on youth justice. So part of the act is about protecting children from harm, but then another is designed to actually cause more harm to children and young people. One part treats children based on the current scientific understanding of a child’s relative age and development and in another part directly contradicts these same understandings.

It will recognise that a child under 14 is yet somehow also not, developmentally, a child under 14 when they are accused of committing an adult criminal offence. It will recognise solitary confinement as a form of prohibited torture, yet also provide that these conditions are not torture when they occur in youth detention settings. It will say we should recognise the rights of the child, uphold their best interests and promote their development, except in the youth justice system, where it provides that we should act in a way that knowingly contradicts the science of children’s age and development and is known to lead to catastrophic damage to the future health and development of the child.

For the small yet extremely disadvantaged and complex-needs cohort of vulnerable children that are frequently caught in between the child protection and the criminal justice systems, such contradictions, providing that the same child will not always have their rights protected, depending on the setting they find themselves in, are unacceptable. In crude terms we might ask: what is the point of ensuring that a child moving from youth detention into the child protection system or vice versa, as so many sadly do, will be treated in a way that upholds their best interest and promotes their healthy development when they have already been so badly traumatised from their experience in youth detention that their future development is irreparably damaged?

I understand the government intends to separate the child protection and youth justice legislation and that we expect to see this later this year. I think this is probably a good thing to do, but such a promise of future legislation does not permit the government to delay overdue reforms to bring Victoria consistently up to the minimum international human right standards in terms of the treatment of all children in all state-run facilities, nor does it overcome the fact that the bill in its current form will be unable to achieve its stated objectives by allowing many vulnerable children to fall outside its protection in certain circumstances.

The Greens have prepared amendments to the bill to rectify this, to ensure the bill actually meets its stated intention and protects children from harm. Our amendments will restore the one working day time frame for a court to hear an emergency application, remove the restriction on making a care order where another person is providing supervision and assistance to the parents, ban solitary confinement in youth detention centres and of course raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14. I ask, please, that my amendments be circulated.

Greens amendments circulated by Dr RATNAM pursuant to standing orders.

Dr RATNAM: It is appalling that in this state we still allow children as young as 10 to be sent to prison—kids who should be at school, playing sport or seeing friends instead charged as adults and locked away behind bars. The Greens know that this no longer aligns with contemporary understandings of childhood wellbeing and development, and the Victorian community knows this too, with the campaign to raise the age picking up momentum every day.

Victoria is ready to raise the age, but the government continues to drag its feet on this long-awaited reform, and we keep debating legislation like this which amends the relevant legislation but totally fails to address the elephant in the room. When I introduced the Greens’ own bill to raise the age, I noted that:

… the decision we have is not really whether to raise the age. It is whether we decide to act now to raise the age, or whether we go home and wait for more cost, more tragedy, and more crime, before returning back here to the same place, but in a worse state than today, to raise the age.

This is the same choice we have today. If we return to this bill in two weeks time and this place refuses to agree to raise the age of criminal responsibility, then we have completely failed our young people and our duty to protect children from harm. I urge all of us in this place to have a good think about this over the next week and whether we want to start this year off by condemning more kids to prison.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (20:52): With great pleasure I rise to contribute on and support the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. Ensuring the safety and the protection of our children is amongst our most important responsibilities and reflects our shared goals and aspirations as a society to have a strong society with strong families in which children can grow and thrive and get a good start—each and every one of them.

This amending bill is a bill to further our achievements as a government. The Victorian government has a landmark reform to support all care leavers to the age of 21, which now will be enshrined, if the bill is passed into law, as part of the significant amendments to the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005. The bill streamlines and strengthens the child protection system and creates a contemporary, rights-based legislative framework to support children and families. We are leading the biggest ever investment and reform agenda in the child protection system to transform it from a crisis response model to earlier intervention and prevention. The Andrews Labor government is providing more support than ever before, with a massive $1.2 billion to boost funding for the children and family system in the Victorian budget 2021–22, which is already on top of the unprecedented $1 billion in last year’s budget.

Due to the time available to me, I can only highlight some of the points in the bill. This is a very substantial bill, so let me go to some of the points that I would like to highlight. The bill will modernise the legislative framework and enhance early intervention, prevention and diversion. The bill will clarify that with the consent of the mother of an unborn child anyone likely to assume parental responsibility for the child once born, and anyone else who will be significant to the child, may be offered advice and services. This is to reflect a more contemporary understanding of family types and makes clear that advice and services can be provided to all persons who will assume the responsibility as parents for the child or have a significant relationship to the child. Importantly, it retains the need to obtain the consent of the mother of the unborn child before advice and services can be provided to another person. By focusing the investment in this way and spreading the availability of specialist support and therapeutic intervention for families in crisis, we will have the best possible chance of keeping families together, and more importantly of keeping children safe, which will in turn prevent a number of cases in which they would otherwise end up in court with a decision to be made about placing that child in state care.

The bill also clarifies and modernises volunteer childcare agreements. Currently childcare agreements can be negotiated by a parent or young person 16 years or older directly with a community service via a written care agreement. To modernise and clarify the circumstances in which a volunteer childcare agreement can be made, the bill will make clear that the childcare agreement does not confer parental responsibility for the child on the service agency caring for the child. Rather, the parents will retain all of the decision-making responsibility other than for daily care matters.

The bill also introduces the principle of family group conferencing. It is a new decision-making principle which requires the secretary to consider whether the decision-making process should include a family group conference. The family group conference can be achieved by identifying appropriate support and service needs for the child by planning in partnership with families for children’s safety and wellbeing and also building safety within the family to minimise the need for further statutory intervention. In 2021–22 the state budget provided nearly $20 million over three years to trial an approach to family group conferencing, and work is currently underway on the design of the model that will include protection for families where family violence is a concern.

Another point I would also like to highlight is the prohibition of personal cross-examination of victim-survivors by perpetrators of family violence. The bill will expressly prohibit the cross-examination of witnesses by an unrepresented party in the family division of the Children’s Court where it is determined to be inappropriate. But to provide procedural fairness, a referral to Victoria Legal Aid will allow the cross-examination to be conducted by a legal practitioner acting on behalf of the legally unrepresented party.

The last point I would like to highlight is about elevating the rights of the child to increase the age at which intervention can occur to protect a child. Currently provisions prevent the reporting of abuse and neglect regarding 17-year-olds who are not already under a protection order from being received and investigated. The lifting of this will bring Victoria in line with all other jurisdictions in Australia.

Also the bill will introduce and legislate supporting out-of-home-care leavers up to the age of 21. It is to be enshrined in law in Victoria’s landmark reform to support out-of-home-care leavers up to the age of 21. This is a reform by the government that the CEO of Anglicare and the Home Stretch coalition called ‘the single most significant reform in child welfare in a generation’. Young people supported by the transition-to-adulthood allowance will have a key worker from Better Futures who will support them across a range of life areas, including housing, education, training, finding employment and also obtaining legal advice and assistance with gaining access to health and community services and counselling and support.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the member for Narre Warren North in the other place for his time as Minister for Child Protection, as well as a member for Northern Metropolitan, Ms Fiona Patten. Both have been champions of outstanding care for young people, and I congratulate them for their advocacy.

The bill introduces many important amendments and new principles to protect the children, to ensure their safety and wellbeing and to provide more coordinated and effective community services to further progress key Victorian government reform priorities. I therefore commend the bill to the house.

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (21:01): I am pleased to rise this evening to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. In doing so, I would like to reiterate the comments of the Liberal lead speaker, Dr Bach, my colleague, and say that The Nationals will be supporting this bill that overwhelmingly has very positive aspects to it and, as has been said, much-needed modernisation of this child protection area. It is an area that, when you come into this role, you get to meet an enormous number of wonderful people both in the departments, where they absolutely care about their work and the integrity of their work, and also those families who extend themselves, their lives, their pockets and their families to look after vulnerable and often quite traumatised children. That is very much the case in Eastern Victoria Region—I have met with some absolutely fantastic people in the out-of-home care, kinship care and foster care areas. I am still learning about the magnitude of the work and the debt that we in this place in Parliament but also Victoria owe them for their care of vulnerable children.

I would like to start off and just make mention of the Home Stretch program and endorse this program. It has been trialled and then adopted in other jurisdictions around the world—in the US, the UK and Canada, across the ditch in New Zealand and certainly in other parts of this country. When I first came in, Georgie Crozier was the shadow minister in the child protection space and very able she was. I invited her down to the Latrobe Valley area and we spoke and had many forums where we learned and spoke about the issues that face parents—foster care parents in the whole. Through that process we also spoke with Quantum around a Home Stretch program, a program where when children get to that point of being 17, rather than moving out of the home care area they are actually supported in a looser sense potentially in their own home or a rental or a shared rental or still in the family’s home until they reach 21 years of age.

I happen to be the proud mother of two—I call them boys but they are certainly young men. I understand that as a young man reaches 18, whilst he can drive and he can go to the pub, if I can say that, and he can also vote, he is still developing. They are still becoming adults. They are still learning their way through life. My sons have been in a reasonably well adjusted home, but they still need those conversations and wraparound care of people who love them. In an out-of-home care system we see that children come in, and they come in because their initial home environment is either dangerous, abusive, neglectful or just not fit for their stability and nurturing. So they come into that sector and the longer they can have a good and stable support system, the better they will be. Indeed The Nationals and the Liberals in the last Parliament actually put forward a Home Stretch program, and we are very pleased that the Andrews government then adopted it as well. They took it up, and here it is being embedded into jurisdiction in terms of legislation.

Now, one of the things that the Home Stretch program really provided—and this is published literature from around the world—is that homelessness was halved in certain jurisdictions, hospitalisation was halved, arrests were reduced, alcohol and drug dependency was reduced and educational attainment and engagement was extended. These are things that should ring true in our ears, because that is what we need to see for our young people—and that is why the Home Stretch program certainly is most worthwhile. It is not early intervention by the time they hit 17, but that aftercare into their early adult life certainly helps to prevent a whole raft of further pain and cost on the state system in terms of extended medical care, drug rehab or unfortunately incarceration. We are preventing these sorts of things, so I certainly endorse that.

One fantastic person who I have come to know well in the Eastern Victoria Region is a lady by the name of Heather Baird. She and her fabulous team run A Better Life for Foster Kids. It is a volunteer system. It is certainly a charity. She does an amazing job, as do all of her workers and her committee. They participated in a Victorian survey with some alarming results, but not really surprising in effect. This survey was in 2021, Strong Carers, Stronger Children: Victorian Carer Strategy—Findings of the Home-Based Carer Census,and it was reported to the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing. There was a strong contingent from the Gippsland region, which is really useful for me as well.

Some of the information that came through that was that there is a desperate need for mental health supports in the out-of-home care sector. Children have assessments on their physical health. They have oral assessments and assessments for whether they are seeing well or need glasses. But again, Heather will always stress the importance of that mental health support and the need for a mental health assessment when they walk through the door. Of children in out-of-home care in Victoria, the report showed 69 per cent of them have a history of trauma. Unsurprisingly, 56 per cent of them have behavioural issues, 44 per cent have attachment issues and 40 per cent are identified as having mental health difficulties. They are coming in with clouds over their heads. The report also found that close to a third of carers had ended a placement with a child or children because of these behavioural issues within the children—violence, anger and behavioural issues. I am sure that is unfortunate, but it is the reality that these out-of-home carers have to deal with.

Now, Heather has been so passionate about this, and I know she actually met with Minister Donnellan when he was in this space. She met with him—I had advocated for her to meet with him—and she certainly had a productive meeting with him. She has called for the Andrews government to present a pilot program about mental health assessments. Now, to date that request was received, but nothing has been actioned to have these wraparound services so that within the first three weeks of going into care a child has a proper mental health assessment. That does not mean that they are going to get all the services instantaneously, but they will have an assessment. She just said, ‘Children need to tell their story’. Whatever that story may be, they need to be able to express it, get it out there, unpack it, go through it and have help—professional help—when needed to pass through that. I think we should all relate to that.

Now, it is not coming from the government at the moment, so the pilot program is being run by A Better Life for Foster Kids. They are putting forward $20 000. It sounds like chickenfeed to big business and big budgets, but it will mean a lot to children in the area that they identify. They are going to have these assessments and pay those bills and then present that back to government as a really important way of showing the significance of having that early intervention for children. She certainly has some questions that she would like me to ask in the committee stage, so I am just flagging that with the minister. It will probably be next week, I am assuming. But it is really important that we follow up on these things.

Through the meeting she had with Mr Donnellan—Minister Donnellan at the time—there was a real issue around statistics. She wants to understand about a child that has no reunification order—so they are not ever going to go back to the parent; it is too unstable, too dangerous. She has cases where the child is languishing on the list in limbo land, unable to get heard in the court system, and she has seen instances where a child has gone in almost at birth and they have still been in the system two years later. Now, if you are not going to reunify them with the parents and there is no hope of doing that, then that child needs to be fast-tracked through the system into a loving home, a permanent home, a permanent care arrangement, so I want to ask some questions about how that process is going, how many children are put into permanent care within the two-year period and how many are still waiting on lists. I think we need to see some of that data, because we need to see it and government needs to understand how it can target its investment in this space. There are other questions, but I just would like to touch on a couple of other things from the bill, so I will save some of those questions certainly for the committee stage.

When we see people calling life as it is I think we need to endorse them and encourage them to go further. There is a sensational lady who I think is well known if you look on any sort of social media; she is Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, and she actually calls it as she sees it because she lives it and she understands what happens in her Indigenous community. But she is looking at what is in the best interests of those children and the women around those children, youth and families. I really endorse her courage, because sometimes she is actually not seen to be trendy. There are some in society that would push back on her and tell her to sit down and be quiet, but I want to encourage her to keep working.

Fortunately we do see—and this bill starts to look into this in detail—a modernising of legislation and frameworks to decrease the overrepresentation of, as in this case it is saying, Indigenous children in the system. Again, speaking with Heather, she does see that there is often a bouncing, unfortunately, of Indigenous children from kinship care to kinship care and then out into the foster care sector, and it really sometimes does not serve the child. Heather will often say the system is back to front, because quite often it is around the parent or the kinship parents or even the original parents. So I think this system really needs to be overhauled. If this can do it and provide strength to support the children, then this is a very good thing.

With that I think I will leave my contribution there for this evening, endorsing this bill. I know that my colleague Dr Bach spoke about the time frame, and this bill lengthens the time frame for protection—youth protection, child protection—to be able to have those children assessed and put through the courts. I endorse his position about bringing it back and keeping it in the status quo, as the Law Institute of Victoria have put forward in their very strong position. We have heard from them in the past, and I think they are reasonably wise individuals in terms of the law. So I endorse his position in terms of our amendment, and with that I look forward to the committee stage of the bill.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (21:15): I am very pleased to speak somewhat briefly and somewhat specifically to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021, which as we have heard from Ms Bath just now, is an omnibus bill with lots of features and tendrils to it. But I would like to focus my attention on part 19. Two years ago I introduced the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Out of Home Care Age) Bill 2020. Back then in Victoria exit care planning for kids in foster and state care began at 15 years of age, and every child must have left the nest by their 18th birthday. As many as 800 young people were leaving care in Victoria every year. In Victoria somewhere around 11 000 children are unable to live with their parents at any given time and find themselves in the statutory care of the state—that is, their legal guardian or parent is the government. Most of these children are living in foster or kinship care, but around 6 per cent live in residential or group homes. Now, this may be the result of violence in the home or issues with their parents’ drug use or mental health. There is a plethora of reasons why children can no longer live in their homes.

When we think about who these children are and the trauma that these children may already have experienced in their young lives, there is no doubt many will remain vulnerable. While 85 per cent of 18- to 21-year-olds in Australia are still living at home with one or both parents—and I know many of us would have experienced having adult children still living at home with one or both parents—we were expecting, until this bill, our vulnerable care leavers to fend for themselves at age 18. It was quite simply a recipe for disaster, and the statistics have borne that out. Care and support, financial and emotional, is withdrawn by the state. It is abrupt, and it is no surprise that within 12 months of leaving care 50 per cent of our care leavers were homeless, in jail or unemployed—50 per cent. For those reasons, countries like the USA, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany and Portugal extended care to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds with, not surprisingly, incredible results. And that is why I introduced a bill some time ago to do the same here in Victoria, because it simply stood to reason. In Leeds, England, the year after they extended their leaving-care age, only one young care leaver ended up in custody, as compared to 102 in the year before implementation. So it went from 100 kids ending up in custody to just one—just by this simple model.

Deloitte Access Economics estimated that continuing care in Australia to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds would almost halve homelessness, reduce hospitalisation by one-third, reduce mental illness by over 40 per cent, increase engagement in education, significantly decrease arrests and massively decrease alcohol and drug dependence for this cohort. So this amendment—part 19 of this bill—is really a no-brainer, and I am pleased that we got there. And I have to say I am pleased that we were able to nudge the government in that direction. It is very good evidence-based policy. It is a platform of the Reason Party. It is why we brought the issue to this place. To the government’s credit, they acted almost immediately to extend the Home Stretch program administratively in 2020, but legislating this change just guarantees that reform.

Today we see lasting legislative reform being locked into our statutes. This will save and change lives. Ms Maxwell and I have been working on the justice inquiry and we have seen the effect of—you would not even almost call this ‘early intervention’ at 18—providing safety and security to our young people, the impact that will have on their lives in the future and the impact that will have on our justice system, on our homelessness system, on so many other factors in our society.

This bill will expand the secretary’s responsibilities to provide services to assist young people under the age of 21 who are transitioning from out-of-home care to adulthood to include young people who have grown up in permanent care. I think all of us can think of that 18-year-old, and the thought of just closing the door, changing the locks and saying ‘You’re on your own now’ when some of them may be still trying to finish year 12 and some of them are just still trying to find their way—most of us cannot even conceive of doing that with our children.

The bill also creates a legal obligation for the secretary to provide a transition to adulthood allowance for all eligible care leavers. The allowance will contribute to the costs of accommodation and support for young people who have left care as they transition to adulthood where the young person is living independently or where they are remaining with their existing home-based carer. This is how the wonderful Home Stretch program will be delivered, via this reform, to the 500 or 600 young people who leave care this year and in years to come. I congratulate the government for listening and for acting on this really important policy.

I did not write this section, but I think this is how having a crossbench does impact in here. It does enable us to nudge on policy. I do not want to take credit for this because I know there are the Home Stretch campaigners and there have been so many people campaigning for this change. But sometimes it takes someone to bring it into the house, to just push it that little bit further and push it over the hill so it gets onto the legislative agenda of the government, and I will take some credit for doing that. But this is very pragmatic change, as I just would like to reiterate—change that has been campaigned for by many organisations. I certainly would like to congratulate all of them, and I know that all of them are feeling really good in the knowledge that we are legislating for these changes.

As I said, this is an omnibus bill, and I only wanted to touch on that part specifically, but I would like to make the point that I recognise the issues that stakeholders, including the Law Institute of Victoria, Women’s Legal Service Victoria and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, have raised with respect to time frames for emergency applications, care of a suitable person, reunification time frames and other matters. I look forward to discussing more of those in the committee process, and I will certainly support amendments in this house that go to those matters.

Dr Ratnam’s out-of-scope amendments are around increasing the age of criminal responsibility. That is an issue that I also am passionate about, and I will be very interested to see how we go in the committee process for that. It is certainly a Reason Party policy as well. Kids should be treated as kids, not criminalised before their young minds have even developed, not thrust into a criminal justice pathway that they cannot escape. We know the younger a child enters into the criminal justice system the more likely they are to stay in it. One of the facts that a number of us on the Legal and Social Issues Committee heard is that 44 per cent of the crimes are committed by 6 per cent of people, and of those 6 per cent almost all of them started hitting the justice system at around the age of 10, so increasing that age of criminal responsibility could have a dramatic impact on our crime stats, on our prisons, on our justice system.

To return to my principal point, I am so glad to increase the care-leaving age in this state to give some of our most vulnerable Victorians a much better chance, and that is the reason I commend the bill to the house.

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (21:25): I too rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. It occurred to me as I was listening to all of the different speakers that I am so pleased to be part of a Parliament where people with different points of view can come in and talk about such an important reform, such an important piece of legislation, looking after our most precious commodity, and that is our children. There is nothing more noble, I do not think, that a Parliament can do than to deal with legislation that has as its objective to provide the best possible protection that we can provide our children. I said when I first started in this place that the ultimate Sisyphean task in my view was to identify inequality and then deal with it, because each and every time when you think you have found it and you have dealt with it, you turn over the next page and there is more, and it is that constant challenge.

Of course I contrast the discussion that is occurring in this place at this time around this bill with what is going on in our nation’s capital, where this week has been dominated by a bill purporting to support each and every child, but of course what it was doing was providing state-based sanctions for discrimination against certain children. If I might just digress for a moment in talking about that, my very dear friend is the member for Whitlam, Stephen Jones. Stephen and I go back a long way. We were baby organisers in the CPSU. We then became industrial officers, and we shared a portfolio around social security and employment services. Ultimately Stephen and I became the national leadership of the CPSU. I was very, very proud. Stephen has always been an exceptional talent, but there are moments in people’s lives where they shine, and what shone through from Stephen was love for children. That is what it was; it was just love. It was non-judgemental, it was supportive, it was caring love. Stephen’s child was on the ABC this morning. Paddy was interviewed, and what an outstanding young person Paddy is. Michael Rowland asked Paddy, ‘So how do you define yourself?’. This extraordinary young person, 14 years of age, just looked straight down the camera and said, ‘I don’t feel a need to have to define myself. I am who I am. I’m comfortable in my own skin and I’m happy’, and that said it all.

But of course what precipitated those things this week was a debate in our nation’s capital that I do not think stood our country in the best light. Rather than the opportunity to unite and come together and try and advance the interests of children it sought to segregate certain children and ultimately became a very divisive and divided debate. I think those that took part in it and led that process may well reflect in time to come on their role and I think, if they had their druthers, would probably approach it from a different perspective. As I said, I contrast the approach there in Canberra with the approach here today. We do not have cameras everywhere. We do not have journalists hanging over the rafters. Maybe that is the Legislative Council.

Dr Bach: Because it is 9.30 at night.

Mr GEPP: Well, it is. But they were there at 4 o’clock this morning up in Canberra when they were debating these things. But they are not here, because it is not divisive. What we have got is a group of people in this chamber who are all committed, I believe. We may have different views about how we are going to get there, and I accept that, but it is so important that on important issues such as this, where it comes to our most precious commodity, that we all strive, we bring out the best in each other to try and achieve something for our kids that will be long lasting but importantly be beneficial to them. I want to congratulate former minister Mr Donnellan for the work that he has done in this space over a long period of time.

Dr Bach: And Dick.

Mr GEPP: And Dick. I also particularly want to thank Minister Carbines, who has taken up the challenges as well, and everybody who has participated in the formulation of this policy.

As has been noted by many speakers before, this is an omnibus bill. It is very complex, it is very large and it is very detailed, and it is not possible in a second-reading speech to go through it. I am sure that the committee process will be long—I am certain of that—but I am also confident that it is going to be a very, very productive process, listening to the contributions that have been made in the chamber here tonight.

I do want to perhaps deal with one issue that I did hear Dr Ratnam raise in relation to consultation. I think it is important just to put on record my understanding of what actually has taken place in the formulation of this bill. My understanding is that there have been 68 stakeholder groups that we have met with. There have been six information sessions. There have been 57 tailored consultation sessions. There have been workshops with the Children’s Court. I think there have been multiple workshops with the Children’s Court. Dr Ratnam talked about Aboriginal community controlled organisations and the work that we have done with ACCOs, and of course we have done a lot of work in this space with ACCOs and more broadly Aboriginal child protection in the formulation of this bill. Dr Ratnam encouraged us to continue to consult with those groups. Of course we will.

One thing that we recognise as a labour party is we acknowledge the traditional owners of this land. We acknowledge the oldest living culture on this planet. We value that culture. We value all that they bring to this nation, and we understand that self-determination, self-management and all the things that go with it are so important. Advancing Aboriginal self-determination and self-management are key aspects of this bill.

I just want to touch on a couple of things that we are doing. The one thing that we do not claim is—using the Sisyphean task—that it stops here, but we keep going, we keep going, we keep going. We keep advancing. We keep moving forward. That is what this is about. We are legislating five aspects underpinning the intent of the Aboriginal child placement principle. The bill expressly includes all five aspects of that, and they are prevention, participation, partnership, placement and connection. Section 13 of the current act, the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005, describes matters that must be considered when placing an Aboriginal child in care, and this has the effect of placement being incorrectly considered as the sole or most important principle.

This is one element of a suite of reforms introduced by this bill to achieve self-determination and self-management for Aboriginal people and to strengthen provisions that uphold the primacy of culture for the safety of Aboriginal children. As has been noted by at least two speakers, we have an unacceptably high number of Aboriginal children in care and in contact with child protection, but we also know that the reasons around those numbers are very, very complex and they must be understood in the context of a long history of racism, dispossession, marginalisation and poverty. The evidence is clear that the single biggest factor in improving health and social outcomes is self-determination. We recognise that Aboriginal people are best placed to lead and inform responses for Aboriginal children and families and that Aboriginal people have the strengths and right to lead change for their children.

They are just some of the aspects of the bill before the house. As I said, it is a very detailed bill. There is much detail to go through, and I am sure that, as I said, the committee stage will be a very robust process. It will be thoughtful. It will be thought provoking. There will be lots of challenges and amendments put forward and ideas discussed and kicked around, and I welcome that, particularly if tonight’s debate is a measure of how that process will occur. I am confident it will be because I am confident that everybody in this place is coming at it from the same perspective, and that is: let us get the best outcome for our kids that we can get. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (21:37): I rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. I would like to thank everybody for their contributions so far, but in particular there were a lot of remarks that Mr Gepp made that really resonated I am sure not only with me but with other members and people who are listening. I commend you on your dedication to children, and you have conveyed that in many of your speeches, Mr Gepp, over time in this place. I think that certainly needs to be acknowledged.

We know that this bill makes a number of improvements to a system that quite often fails vulnerable children in its care. I have seen it. I have worked in it. I applaud those workers who are in that position, who are doing their best. I can remember working with a woman, and she used to carry tins of tuna and biscuits and things in her handbag. And I said to her, ‘Michelle, how do you go when you go into a supermarket? Why have you got all this food in there?’. And she said, ‘Because when I work with these vulnerable children I never know when I’m going to get a meal break. I never know where I might be in 2 or 3 hours from now. I could be out the back of Bourke. I could be anywhere’. I was more concerned about her getting picked up for shoplifting, but that is the life they lead.

Those workers are so incredibly dedicated. This bill needs to make our system easier for those workers. They do live and breathe their work, and I commend every child protection worker who commits their life to supporting these vulnerable children. We know that there has been report after report from the Commission for Children and Young People, and we know there is still such a long way to go to achieve safety and good outcomes for these children. When the system fails these children, there is pure heartbreak. It is children who live without the benefits of lasting connections, trust, safety and security. These children are shuffled through multiple out-of-home placements and multiple caseworkers, never really knowing where they belong, some never really knowing and understanding why they been removed. A child has so much love for a parent no matter how that parent treats them.

It is up to us as a Parliament to do better for these children—not only these children but the families they are born into. It is imperative that we do not just work with the child but we work with the family, we work with support organisations and we make easier those necessary changes to prevent these families from being vulnerable, to assist these families to become stronger and to give them the support, the knowledge and the education so these children do not need to be removed.

Many of these children have suffered trauma. Then with their being removed from the home the trauma perpetuates and then as they are returned and are removed again, and then they go back and then they are removed again—it goes on and on and it becomes a revolving door of chaos. I have often used a really bizarre analogy, but it is one that I think is so true: you cannot take a child out of Afghanistan, send them to Hawaii for a week, bring them back to Afghanistan and expect them to make changes to their behaviour. It is not realistic. It is not practical without us supporting the families that these children live in. Why are we so dependent on the children making the changes to their own behaviour? That is something that really has always resonated with me. We put so much focus on the child changing their behaviour without giving them and their family the supports to do so.

A lot of these vulnerable children are more likely to suffer mental illness and substance abuse, endure sexual abuse and violence, have low educational attainment and ultimately, for some, have contact with juvenile justice. Ultimately they become adults who are more likely to experience poverty, continued mental health challenges, ongoing substance abuse and unemployment—or worse. They are more likely to commit crime, to perpetuate abuse themselves—and against themselves—and to have their own children removed and to end up in prison.

This is not some far-flung thought process; this is what I have worked with. I have spoken to so many organisations and stakeholders who live with and see this time and time again. These are not the outcomes that they want for vulnerable children and families. This is not the outcome we want for adults. Nobody wants children left in homes where they are unsafe and neglected, but unfortunately that is a regular occurrence across our state every day—and we simply must do better.

The system is under such strain that often it is only in the most critical of cases where children are removed, and when they are there is sometimes nowhere for them to go—perhaps a hotel room accompanied by a revolving door of caseworkers or a residential setting that is not matched to their age or circumstances and possibly does not offer therapeutic care. We see what happens when intervention programs are too short and where the workforce and funding are stretched too thin.

I keep harking back to the need for early and intensive support to get families back on track and to help them stay on track. I must say at this point that I think the decision to reduce and in many cases stop child protection workers having face-to-face visits with at-risk children during the pandemic is one we should never see again. In 2020–21 the commissioner for children and young people was notified of 45 children who died after having contact with child protection. In two of those cases the face-to-face contact reduced and the direct supports ceased during such a critical time. As the commissioner said, this meant children already at risk of abuse and neglect were even less visible to organisations and critical services. This should never be repeated, and we must do better.

There is a plethora of people working in the sector who, as I said before, give their heart and soul to helping these children and families that they work with. These are people who are born to do this work. Their passion and their commitment are just absolutely so appreciated, and the gratitude I have for those workers is beyond belief.

There are incredible foster carers and kinship carers, but there are not nearly enough of them. There are others who play a vital role in these children’s lives, such as teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, caseworkers and volunteers. Volunteers in our community play an enormous role in supporting these young people and their families. I recognise also that this is very complex work. It can be overwhelming, frustrating and bureaucratic. The policy development itself is very complex, and I am grateful to the minister, staff and department, who have provided me with briefings on the work being done to improve the system. I do say that I am very grateful to the government for bringing this bill to us, and I think it is an enormous start to better protecting our vulnerable children.

Clause 35 of this bill makes a symbolic change to best-interest principles that I hope will deliver a more child-centred approach to decision-making in the future. The focus of decision-making should be orientated to the wellbeing of the children, and sometimes this should be over the rights of parents. This includes making decisions in the best interests of the child and ensuring the child has a voice in the process.

A case in point was made to my office by someone who is working with a sibling group, noting they had been removed from their home 18 months ago for very serious family violence, parental drug use and neglect. They are now safe, cared for, learning, sleeping, eating. Most importantly, they are being children. Unfortunately contact visits trigger trauma behaviours every time. Often the parent does not turn up for their visit, which further traumatises the children. This happens nearly every week. In this case, these children live in a state of confusion because their lives are so uncertain. They live in fear of being returned to their parents or constantly disappointed because their parents do not turn up to their contact visits. How many times do we put a child through this before we change the approach? When a child has contact visits it should be a positive experience. We need to secure this outcome for them and find appropriate alternatives when contact simply compounds trauma.

There is much we can do to help preserve the parental-child bonds without the child experiencing recurring trauma that often accompanies that bond, whether it is responding to drug use, alcohol, family violence or homelessness, and this is where I reiterate the importance of working with not only the child but the family. There is also much to be said for those programs and organisations who work from a strength-based approach, who not only support the child but help the entire family and empower them to make positive change. I firmly believe these interactions need to be early, intensive and enduring. The crisis point is simply far too late.

I would like to see work with vulnerable and at-risk mothers and their families delivered more intensively as part of a sustained nurse home visiting program, like a super-nanny model who would help parents get the family and home on track and keep it there. My intern, Vera Boylan, did some great work on investigating the feasibility of this model, and I will continue my discussions with the government on these preventative approaches.

This bill is a stepping stone to reducing the number of traumatised children ending up in care, and this government must ensure a therapeutic and holistic approach is embedded across the system. I have heard positive things about how the therapeutic treatment board has worked through the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005. It has not required many more resources; however, it has implemented the right resources to support decision-making for children with concerning sexual behaviours. The act has worked well for these children, and the board provides the expertise in guiding decision-making.

There have been some concerns raised that the provision in this bill to extend the time frame for reducing emergency care applications will have adverse consequences. I know those who have this view have the best interests of the parents at heart, but I can see the government’s perspective that giving child protection a little more time to prepare, including undertaking proper assessment of placements, will also be beneficial.

We need to think about this through the experience of the child. We often see that by the time children are removed and all that goes with that chaos—and it is chaos—if they go to an emergency respite carer, they might not get there until late; sometimes they have not eaten, have not bathed or have not slept. They have had a terrible day or many terrible days. They get to bed late, and first thing the following day they are picked up by yet another child protection worker to head to court. These children have not had the chance to take a breath, to eat properly, to have some playtime or to have some rest. Is rushing this process really in the best interests of the child? We do need to make sure, however, that if children need to be in emergency care for longer as a result of this change to the act, the care is available for them and the time frames do not drag the timing of a hearing out unnecessarily.

Interim accommodation orders are another change that some stakeholders raised concerns about with us. The change will provide the person they are residing with with more power in urgent situations and the capacity to receive an allowance. I think there could be opportunities to sort out funding issues so that carers can access financial support through ways other than legislation. The Law Institute of Victoria is concerned that the provision will be a disincentive for leaving family violence and perhaps place children at greater risk.

The bill creates family group conferences, which appear to have some positive effects in other jurisdictions, avoiding court proceedings and offering alternative intervention practices. The bill changes the definition of ‘seclusion’ and prohibits the solitary confinement of children. The delegate has the power to seclude children for a maximum of 12 hours. Restriction of children in such a way is definitely an extreme action, and I do not suggest isolation is the appropriate intervention. However, I do not have a great understanding of what the alternative is, and once again I would like to know what supports will be put in place for children and workers when things get so out of hand that seclusion is considered necessary. Seclusion is sometimes also used for the safety of that person and the safety of others, so I will be very interested to ask some of those questions in committee as to what the actual alternative is.

Regarding the Greens’ proposed amendment to raise the age of criminal responsibility, I do not think there is anyone in this place that wants to see young children incarcerated. The ultimate way to achieve this is through intensive early intervention that diverts children away from criminal offending. Children do not just wake up one day, commit serious crime and end up in juvenile justice. There are opportunities for intervention and diversion that are missed along the way. From the very early years there is a gap we need to fill urgently. I have real concerns that raising the age without proper supports in place could see children targeted by criminals who would use them to commit crimes on their behalf—and we are already seeing that; those numbers are increasing.

I will leave my points there in relation to this bill and would like to finish on that early intervention focus—that we will deliver big returns, reducing the number of children entering out-of-home care and improving their lives, the lives of young people. A report released by SVA Consulting which was commissioned by major players in the community services sector provided an economic case for investment in early intervention and recommended five programs to support vulnerable children and families at different points in the system. Turning up the dial in these programs over a 10-year period could remove more than 1200 children from the out-of-home care system every year. It requires big dollars—$150 million every year—but the returns will be delivered downstream through reduced pressure on the justice, health and homelessness systems.

The government has invested in some of these measures—I am very grateful for that—and we are starting to see a greater focus on those therapeutic interventions. I recognise there is not an endless supply of funds, but both our child protection and justice systems need this intensive and sustained funding from end to end if we are to make real inroads into change. I look forward to seeing those reforms unfold and hope they will deliver better outcomes for every vulnerable child. I look forward to participating in committee of the whole, and I thank the government for bringing this bill to the Parliament.

Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Resources) (21:56): I move:

That the debate be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.