Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:24): I rise to update the house on how the Allan Labor government is making significant reforms to child protection legislation in Victoria, allowing more families to reunify when it is safe and in the child’s best interests. As many in this house would be aware, I was privileged to appear at the Yoorrook Justice Commission in 2023. As part of my evidence, we discussed the operation of the permanency settings and how they were a blunt instrument impacting the ability of families to reunify with their children. These settings also have disproportionate impact on First Peoples. Following the commission’s hearings, recommendation 25 of the Yoorrook for Justice report stated:

The Victorian Government must amend the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) to allow the Children’s Court of Victoria to extend the timeframe of a Family Reunification Order where it is in the child’s best interest to do so.

And this week, in the other place, we will second read the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025, putting forward a bill to enact this recommendation. Whilst reunification will still be pursued at the earliest possible opportunity when it is safe to do so and in the child’s best interests, we recognise that family reunification orders need to be more flexible. Under this bill initial orders will be available for up to 24 months cumulative time in out-of-home care, with an unlimited number of 12-month extensions available when it remains in the child’s best interests.

We will undertake further reform. This legislation will also acquit a recommendation from the Parliament’s 2021 forced adoption inquiry by removing adoption as a case planning objective in child protection. Whilst this amendment will affirm the longstanding practice that adoption is not pursued by child protection, it will ensure beyond any doubt that it will not be a part of child protection case planning. We will also modernise the term ‘permanency’ in the act, with the more fulsome term ‘stability’ to replace it. This moves away from a focus on merely a child’s legal stability to a consideration of legal, physical, cultural and relational stability together as a holistic concept. I am extremely proud to put forward this legislation to the Parliament as it will ensure that every single family in this state will have the best chance to reunify when it is safe and in a child’s best interests.