Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:37): My question is to the Minister for Children. Minister, reports emerged yesterday that a girl with special needs was allegedly raped by a teenage boy who was housed with her, and after claims he had molested her were ignored for several months. Minister, you are responsible for these vulnerable children and young people who are under your care, so why were these claims ignored by your government?

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:37): I thank Ms Crozier for her question. I thought with a new administration over there we might actually get some more compassionate, empathetic questions that relate to those who call our residential care system their home.

As I have indicated in this place before, our residential care system is indeed a home. It is a place where often traumatised young people, people who are indeed most vulnerable because of the circumstances that have landed them in those residences in the first place, are provided an environment in which they are cared for. As of July this year all residential care placements are in therapeutic care placements, which is a vast improvement on the residential care system that we inherited.

In relation to specific allegations in relation to specific incidents, I cannot comment on individual matters so far as they relate to individual children. But what I will say is that there is a very thorough process that is followed when there are allegations of abuse. Where there are allegations of abuse that meet certain thresholds, they would obviously be reported to the police. That is obviously the case. These are very complex environments in which children and young people who come from complex lives live, and the circumstances that have landed them in those homes in the first place are indeed often traumatic and certainly complex. The systems that are built around them, the therapeutic supports that exist in all of those homes now for all of the children, are designed to ensure that children are cared for, safe and have the same opportunities as other children – to live a life of purpose and to thrive.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:39): Thank you, Minister, for that response. You said there is a thorough process, but these claims, or these concerns, were ignored for several months, so I do not know how thorough the process actually is. Minister, in the same article a senior government appointee in the child protection system is reported as saying, ‘it is fact’ that many of these children are regular offenders. They said:

The evidence is very clear that there is a really big overlap between children who are in the care system, especially residential care, and children who end up engaging in crime and entering into youth justice …

You have just said that the residential care system is their home, yet these issues with these vulnerable children and young people are clearly not working given the issue I raised in the substantive question. So my question to you is: why won’t you take responsibility for failing these vulnerable young people?

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:40): Sadly, Ms Crozier, I had a feeling that that was where you were going. As I said, residential care is not a custodial setting. Residential care is a home for young people who have come from complex lives. Indeed our government has committed $548 million in recent years to ensuring that what wraps around those children and young people are therapeutic supports. In Victoria we actually have – and I am sure you will be very interested in my upcoming ministers statement, which talks to the vast number of children who are in our out-of-home care system who are actually in kinship care, the highest rates in the country – in terms of out-of-home care the majority of children and young people are placed within family environments.

What I would say too – and it is important that the fundamental premise of your question is rejected, or your supplementary question, if you can indeed even call it that – is the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that Victoria had the lowest rate in Australia of young people aged 10 to 17 under youth justice supervision who had also interacted with – (Time expired)

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:41): I move:

That the minister’s answer be taken into consideration on the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to.