Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (09:41): I move, by leave:

That contingent on the following bills being introduced in the Council, this house authorises the President to permit their second-reading debates to be taken concurrently:

(1)   Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority Bill 2025;

(2)   Social Services Regulation Amendment (Child Safety, Complaints and Worker Regulation) Bill 2025; and

(3)   Early Childhood Legislation Amendment (Child Safety) Bill 2025.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (09:41): I just want to indicate the opposition will support the cognate debate, but I just want to put on record some concerns we have. The first is in the lower house – the failure of the government to bring these bills forward in a timely way to enable people in the lower house and our parties to look at these bills in a way that provided sufficient opportunity and ability to consult with community groups and so forth. This is terrible legislative practice, and I do want that on the record.

The second thing I indicate is that there is obviously a cluster of three bills coming through. The reality is they are interlinked. We accept that, and Mr Mulholland has made that point very clear. But in the debate, the effect of the cognate debate will be to crunch the speaking time of many people. With three complex bills there would normally be 45 minutes – 15, 15, 15 – for an individual to speak. I am happy to note that I have just had a conversation with the government, and there may be some ability to work with the government to provide perhaps an additional bit of time for some people where there is additional complexity on those three bills.

The third thing is that the opposition is concerned about the congestion at the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel with drafting of amendments and related matters. Now, this is not parliamentary counsel’s fault. In fact, I have the highest regard for Jayne Atkins and the work that her people do. It is the government’s legislative program that has got huge congestion at this end of the year. So I am appreciative of the minister and the Leader of the Government’s discussion just now. We may need assistance to be able to ensure that the drafting of amendments that we would seek to do can occur. It is not parliamentary counsel’s fault, and it is not our fault. It might be that it is over in the Premier’s office; I do not know the insides of the government. But I just want those things on record, and I thank the Leader of the Government and the minister for the discussion I have just had and the understanding that we support the cognate debate – but with those points.

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (09:44): I too would like to express my deep concerns around the very little time that we have had to look through these pieces of legislation that the minister has put forth to the chamber. These are huge pieces of legislation, one of them 450-plus pages, and for us to be expected to scrutinise and engage stakeholders widely to ensure that we are doing our due diligence as legislators in this house of review is deeply troubling.

We have tried to find some common ground so that we can be given ample time to go through this legislation, because it goes without saying we all want the same thing in ensuring that the legislation in relation to child care will strengthen the sector and, more importantly, keep children safe. But I feel there is a barrier here for us to be able to do that in a full capacity and in a well-balanced way when we are expected to go through huge pieces of legislation in a really, really tight timeline. I just want to put that on the record.

Also, the Social Services Regulation Amendment (Child Safety, Complaints and Worker Regulation) Bill 2025 – the 450-plus piece of legislation – has a big portion around disability. We have been unable at this point to engage stakeholders in relation to the Social Services Regulator, which is a huge part of the bill. Then, on top of that, there are the childcare reforms. So I just want to also put that on the record as well – our concerns around this. We do want to work together with the government to do the job that we are meant to do in this chamber, but it is important that we are also given appropriate and adequate time to do our job.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (09:46): On behalf of Legalise Cannabis, I would also like to echo the comments from Ms Gray-Barberio and Mr Davis. To have some 800 pages of legislation dropped on us at such short notice, and particularly to have sliced into it the recently torpedoed disability bill, sort of beggars belief. I just do not know how the government can expect the crossbench members, with very finite resources, to be able to do justice to the legislation. In that context, one has to question whether or not you want to move that legislation forward. Notwithstanding the primacy of addressing the childcare regulation issue, it is the baggage that has gone with it that causes us great concern. I know that is a concern that is shared by a number of union affiliates as well as other stakeholders who are all just trying to get their heads around it now.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (09:47): I will just speak briefly on this as the representative shadow on two parts. I would like to thank the minister and the department for the briefings on the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority Bill 2025. For that bill we were able to have the appropriate amount of time to consider, to consult, to pore through the bill and to get the sort of legislative advice on that bill. But for the other two bills – the Social Services Regulator and the national law – we did not. We know the rapid review promised that many of the things in those bills would be tabled by October. There should be no greater priority for the government than to keep our children safe, and the government has acknowledged that without these reforms children are at risk. While children are at risk, it is unacceptable that the government has not met its own deadlines over the last month. The Premier has been very quick to put on a hard hat when she should have been at work keeping our kids safe and meeting the promised deadlines for this to be tabled in October. If it all had have been tabled in October, instead of giving us less than 12 hours to pore through hundreds of pages of legislation, then we could have done the work to better consult on this bill. As other colleagues have said, it only took us about a day – but longer than we had.

There are issues with at least one bill, and I have been copping it, as has my colleague Tim Bull, from a lot of the stakeholders, particularly in the disability community, about elements of this bill. Regardless, I thank the government for their briefing and consultation, but it was, I think, too poor a limited amount of time in practice. I hope that can be improved in the future.

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (09:49): I appreciate the opportunity to respond and at the outset thank particularly those who are prepared to support the cognate debate. As the Leader of the Government and I have just committed to Mr Davis, we are more than happy to work with the chamber in ensuring that people have enough time to speak to the issues in these bills if they are debated cognately, bearing in mind that there will be separate committee stages for each of the bills, so still the opportunity for consideration in detail for each of the three bills.

I would just note in relation to the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority Bill 2025, the bill to establish an independent early childhood regulator, as Mr Mulholland said, this was introduced as per the government’s commitment to introducing this legislation by October in accordance with the recommendations of our rapid review into child safety. That was introduced a fortnight ago. I appreciate Mr Mulholland’s remarks that there is sufficient time in relation to that bill for due process to go as it would usually go.

In relation to the national law bill, the content of the bill has been considered by two ministerial councils of education ministers around the country and has had to separately go through each of the cabinet processes within each jurisdiction for us to be able, as the host of the national law, to bring that bill. While I would have ideally liked to have been able to bring in that bill in October, it had to go through the cabinet processes in every other jurisdiction, and I thank the other jurisdictions, because that has also been a very truncated process. Everyone has diligently worked to that truncated process in the interests of being able to further these child safety amendments. As the host of the national law we do have to wait for those approvals from each of those jurisdictions. As I said, there will be the opportunity to go through that bill in the committee stage in detail.

In relation to the social services regulator reforms, we say these – and I appreciate that I think the chamber agrees – should be debated cognately on the basis that so many of the issues around the working with children check, the reportable conduct scheme and the child safe standards that go to the issues we have in relation to early education, to which the other two bills respond, are interlinked. If we were to have three separate debates, they would really be three separate debates about all three bills.

I appreciate the concerns that have been raised in relation to disability measures in the Social Services Regulation Amendment (Child Safety, Complaints and Worker Regulation) Bill 2025. These are not new. These are provisions which were introduced into the other place previously and had been on the notice paper for a very long time. When the rapid review made the recommendation that we need to keep children safe wherever they are, wherever they learn, wherever they play and wherever they grow, the rapid review made specific reference to the fact that there is a particular concern around child safety in disability settings and that we need to ensure that our system is interconnected. It spoke to the very reforms the government had already proposed through those amendments, which have already been introduced into the other place, in relation to the social services regulator. In responding to the rapid review it made absolute sense to take those reforms that were already on the table and put them into the social services regulator bill and for it to be a holistic bill that will address child safety more broadly.

We have over the recent weeks been talking with many interested parties and many in this chamber about all of these reforms so that people could be as briefed as possible prior to them coming to the chamber, because – exactly to Ms Gray-Barberio’s point – we appreciated that particularly the social services regulation bill is a very lengthy document indeed to cover off on all of those matters. Those conversations have been ongoing. They did begin earlier than they would otherwise usually begin when the government is briefing on bills, because I am absolutely committed to making sure that people are as fully briefed as possible to take on these important reforms. As the Leader of the Government and I have just committed to Mr Davis, we are more than happy to continue to do that and to continue to facilitate briefing meetings and briefings with our department that will explain those reforms. I just would also remind the house that those additional reforms that have been referred to in the SSR bill are not new. They were introduced into the other place some time ago, and they are absolutely interlinked and relevant and part of what we are trying to do to keep children safe wherever they learn, wherever they play, wherever they grow.

Motion agreed to.