Tuesday, 3 March 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (13:51): I rise to speak to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. I note today that we have got two bills in relation to child protection. The bill that we will be debating after this one is the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025. So it is a bit curious that we are not doing a cognate debate here, given the issues that largely are impacting both of these bills.

I want to go to what the government is achieving by moving the first bill, the one that I have just mentioned, the supporting stable and strong families bill, before we go on to the next one. But many of the issues and the concerns that I have with this bill are the same issues that I will be repeating myself about in a couple of hours time, I suspect.

What the government is trying to do here is set up a scheme to promote a whole-of-government approach to supporting vulnerable children in the child protection system, their families and care leavers. It is based on a principle that when the state takes responsibility for a child, responsibility for that child’s wellbeing extends beyond child protection and into other parts of government.

I want to just step back in time, because this government has been in power for 10 years, and yet this system has declined. The child protection system has declined, and the appalling situations that we hear about and read about on far too many occurrences have been under their watch. But I want to step back to when the former minister Mary Wooldridge and former Premier Ted Baillieu instigated the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry, or the Cummins report, as it became known, a very significant body of work that was undertaken during our government. In that, the terms of reference included looking at issues around:

•   Strategies to enhance early identification of, and intervention targeted at, children and families at risk including the role of adult, universal and primary services.

…

•   The quality, structure, role and functioning of:

– family services;

– statutory child protection …

– out-of-home care …

•   The interaction of departments and agencies, the courts and service providers and how they can better work together to support at-risk families and children.

And that note I particularly want to come back to, because it is really what the government has failed to implement – a lot of these recommendations that were in the Cummins inquiry.

Other terms of reference include:

•   The appropriate roles and responsibilities of government and non-government organisations in relation to Victoria’s child protection policy and systems.

•   Possible changes to the processes of the courts referencing the recent work of and options put forward by the Victorian Law Reform Commission.

•   Measures to enhance the government’s ability to:

– plan for future demand for family services, statutory child protection services and out-of-home care; and

– ensure a workforce that delivers services of a high quality to children and families.

And importantly:

•   The oversight and transparency of the child protection, care and support system and whether changes are necessary in oversight, transparency, and/or regulation to achieve an increase in public confidence and improved outcomes for children.

That body of work, as I said, is a very important body of work. I do not even know if the minister has read it. I doubt she has – whether she has done anything. It really went to the heart of what was happening, because what we knew when we came into government was that the child protection system was in an appalling state, and it was one of the first things that the government did, understanding the vulnerability and the very issue around these children who are in the child protection system and who are at risk. Going back and having a look at what the inquiry report handed down and did say and what they found, they talked about a policy framework for a system to protect vulnerable children and young people. In chapter 6, the introduction says:

One of the major problems in Victoria is our continuously ‘siloed service systems’ …

This chapter goes on to talk about what was needed:

A systems approach to protecting …children and young people.

The inquiry itself:

… defined the …goal of focusing on a child’s needs as a basis for …

evaluation. It goes on to talk about, importantly:

A system focus assesses the collective impact of individual elements affecting a child’s environment and examines whether the system as a whole is effective at meeting the needs of a child when their parents or caregivers are unable to.

We know that it is very challenging work. Child protection workers, those with carer responsibilities and foster carers do extraordinary work, and this inquiry acknowledged the work of those people. They understood that it was very challenging work and that the child’s needs and the support that those workers needed were critical to get the best outcomes for children. It talks about defining a child’s needs. Chapter 6 says:

A child’s needs go further than ensuring a child’s safety from harm.

This is another important aspect, given what is occurring in this state and the appalling situation that we see.

A child’s essential needs encompass overall health, physical and emotional development and life skills.

Importantly, safety needs:

… a child should be safe from harm or an unacceptable risk of harm (including an understanding of the impact of cumulative patterns of harm), plus a child needs protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation …

For 10 years the exploitation, the harm and the appalling situation that has arisen have been recorded. The government has not been up-front with the public around the appalling situation, but others have spoken out, and there is media article after media article about those failings. I just want to run through a few.

Berry Street residential care staff reported concerns about second-hand exposure to drugs at work, fearing that they may themselves be drug affected due to children openly using ice inside care homes. Workers were instructed to take safety precautions such as wearing face masks if in close proximity to young people using ice. Former staff say drug use is common and staff are powerless to intervene. This highlights the wider systemic issues in residential care, including that those workers – those very people that are doing their best to look after these vulnerable children – are left feeling undertrained, unsupported and burnt out. There are examples of what those workers say. I read an article where one woman at Berry Street in Ballarat, who was brought up in a residential home, went back and looked after those children. She is quoted extensively, and it is just heartbreaking to read her story.

Another article states that the state has a duty of care to these vulnerable children, and it is failing in many respects. In a report by the ABC, a mother said her daughters became more unsafe after entering residential care, engaging in smoking, drinking and drug use.

A 13-year-old girl was leaving care at night to meet adult men, leading to multiple sexual assaults and rapes, and she became pregnant – at the age of 13.

But the residential care workers, the very workers that are there to support these children, have no legal power to stop them from leaving residential care, making them vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation – the very issue that the Cummins inquiry highlighted in 2011 around what they needed to do:

Safety needs: a child should be safe from harm or unacceptable risk of harm (including an understanding of the impact of cumulative patterns of harm), plus a child needs protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation …

These children under this government have been continuously exploited, and they are doing this: drug trafficking, being sexually exploited, being raped – and worse.

Only last year in a report tabled in Parliament former commissioner for children and young people Liana Buchanan says the investigation into the case of a 12-year-old girl with significant mental health issues who stabbed a woman to death ‘exposed some of the most profound service system failures I have seen’.

That is what the commissioner for children and young people said – ‘the most profound service system failures I have seen’. She went on to say the case was:

… a tragic example of how Victoria’s most vulnerable children can be fouled by the systems designed to protect and support them.

There are many, many other stories. There are many other areas. Former commissioner Bernie Geary also spoke about how the system has failed, and under our government he instigated his own report and went into that. So these issues that the government is now fixing have not been new – they have been in the system – but what has happened under this government over the last decade has been how extensive and how much worse it has been getting. I note that Pat McGorry has also spoken about how the system has failed these vulnerable children and what is happening to them inside the system. There are just too many media articles to quote from around the number of children that are put at harm and the number of children that are dying in state care.

I have asked the minister multiple times in this house what is happening around – not individual cases, just on the numbers – those children who are in residential care and who have been caught up in crime gangs and other areas and putting themselves and others at risk, and she continuously refuses to answer, blaming us for bringing these issues up where we are not the only ones. When you have got former care workers and others who are experts in the field saying that this is the worst they have ever seen, that is on the government’s head. This is under the government’s watch, so they have a responsibility to be accountable here. Now what they have done is they have brought in a bill that tries to patch all of this up.

I want to go back to the Cummins inquiry, because the conclusions of that extensive report speak about child abuse and neglect having a devastating impact on the lives of children and what we can do. It acknowledges the work of those that work in the system, how they are doing their very best and that they need support, and that there needs to be more focus on meeting the needs of children and young people in Victoria’s system for protecting children. It is talking about all of these agencies, including not only the agencies that are dealing with them, but also the courts and the police. In its final recommendation it talks about the major system reforms, and the second point on the major system reforms is:

Clearer departmental and agency accountability for addressing the needs of vulnerable children, in particular, health and education.

When you go back, I have explained about those children who are using ice, trafficking drugs, being used themselves for sexual exploitation and falling pregnant at the age of 13. These are the most horrific issues. They have been caught up in crime gangs. They are committing horrendous crimes themselves. We have got to stop that trajectory. The numbers are just getting greater and greater, and the health and education needs of these children are imperative. We do not even know if they go to school. I have asked that question in here, and no-one will answer that very basic question.

The conclusion of the Cummins report also speaks about reducing the system goals, reducing the incidence of child abuse and neglect and reducing the impact of child abuse and neglect, including addressing the immediate and long-term needs of the child – safety, health, development, education and to be heard. It makes the point that the children need to be listened to and to be heard, and I think we have understood that from a number of inquiries around abuse of children. Certainly I had that experience when I did Betrayal of Trust, which was a recommendation of this very report; the inquiry that we did that led to the Betrayal of Trust was a recommendation of the Cummins inquiry. The other system goals include:

•   Over time, reducing the growth in the number of children and young people in out-of-home care in line with the overall growth in the population of Victoria’s children and young people; and

•   Clear and transparent public accountability.

Well, this government has failed on all of those. As I said, I do not know what they did with that Cummins inquiry, but I doubt whether any of them even read it, because the system failures have been so significant. This is what we had back then – the number of reports in 2010–11 was 55,000. They have skyrocketed. In 2020–21 there were around 121,000 child protection reports. That was five years ago. Five years ago they were at 121,000; 10 years ago they were at 55,000. So those report numbers are getting bigger, and the system itself is ballooning with the number of children coming into the system. In 2020–21 there were about 9500 children and young people within the child protection system, and as we speak there are around 11,000, or more than 11,000.

So you have seen this exponential growth in children in child protection and care under this government and the most appalling failures, as I have highlighted. I do not need to go through those again. I make those points because what this bill is doing is trying to cover up the government’s failures, quite frankly. They are looking at establishing a supporting stable and strong families scheme that designates ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Police as partners of this scheme. It goes on to talk about the definition of these partners and who they will be. It requires these partners to prepare plans every two years outlining intended actions within their respective portfolios. It requires these reports to be tabled in Parliament at the end of each two-year plan period. But it does not really talk about how to be accountable. It is talking about a plan to make a plan. The partners are required to prepare plans on how their portfolios, as I said, will contribute to improved coordination and support, but how are we getting better outcomes for these children? How are these plans actually going to do that? And how are they going to be coordinated across these government agencies and departments?

There are a lot of other areas within this bill. There is the expanded advisory role of the Children’s Services Coordination Board. That currently is comprised of departmental secretaries and the Chief Commissioner of Police. This is what the board will do: it will provide guidance on the preparation of these plans that I have spoken about; it will advise on outcomes, measures and cross-government priorities; and it will consider, where known, the views of children, young people and others with lived experience.

Again I go back to the Cummins inquiry. Why is the government recreating the wheel here? In the conclusion, chapter 23, it talks about these very issues across these very areas – health, education. It understands children need to be heard, that lived experience. You can see that through these media reports of some of these carers that have just walked away because they are literally just devastated; they just cannot deal with it any longer.

The concerning thing is the number of children that have died in Victoria’s child protection system. As of last December it was reported that 37 young people died in the protection system in the last year, including 10 infants, and that is after authorities failed to follow government-mandated safety guidelines. We know the problems. Why aren’t you just fixing them? These have been highlighted by the commissioners for children and young people themselves. They have spoken about the failures. They have spoken about what is going on. They have been very up-front around what has been going on. Of the 37 young people who did die last year, 22 of them had open child protection cases at the time, so we know that there are pressures and stresses and these children are very vulnerable. The number of suicides in care too are at the highest levels – another tragedy. It is very difficult for those carers who are looking after these children and dealing with some of these complex cases.

I am stunned that, given what we know, what we have known and what we have raised in this house for years about the failures in the system, they are finally being addressed by a bill that is essentially establishing a plan for a plan. That is what this is doing. There are so many good recommendations from the Cummins inquiry that should have been acted upon. That work had been done. It could have been developed and worked upon, but no, the government just ignored it. They ignored everything until finally those commissioners for children and young people were really belling the cat, and they were highlighting the very real and significant concerns that they had around the profound failures within the systems, as they have said.

Children are taking drugs or being sexually exploited, and I understand the difficulty around telephones and kids accessing that and being groomed on that. I know that is a very, very difficult area for government to deal with. For any parent, it is incredibly difficult looking at that, and I congratulate the federal government for what they are doing in trying to address some of these areas with the social media ban for young people. But what is happening here when paedophiles and sexual trafficking and sexual exploitation has just been extraordinary. The numbers are just horrifying with what is happening not only in Victoria but right around the country. It also goes to the number of children that are missing each year that are having to be tracked by police. Six hundred children under state care went missing last year. That is 50 a month. That is nearly two a day. These are not insignificant numbers. And what is happening to those children? They are not going to school. They are not getting the education, not getting the health outcomes and not getting the support that they need. Probably too many of them will end up in these gangs, doing these horrific crimes and then ending up in the justice system. None of us want that. We want early intervention. We want the prevention measures in. It is critical those children get the support and the education that they need.

This government has failed. They have failed dismally on it. I find these numbers and that this has been going on just astounding, and I want to congratulate those that have spoken out about it, who have said enough is enough.

As Professor Pat McGorry says – and he acknowledges and we all acknowledge that kids with addictions are a very significant issue – support workers need support and more resourcing. He says that there needs to be a fundamental rethink on how the state is managing these kids with addictions – because how is it all right that careworkers are exposed to kids taking ice, and then they are so worried that they are going to be impacted that they cannot drive home in case they get pulled up by the police and test positive? How is that all right? It is happening here in Victoria. They have to get somebody to pick them up because the kids are all smoking ice bongs, the residential care houses are full of illegal drugs and no-one is doing anything about it. Surely to goodness these kids need a chance. They need to understand and they need to be rehabilitated, and the carers and support workers also need to be able to assist in saying, ‘That is not all right. You are on a trajectory of doom and gloom if you continue taking ice.’ No-one seems to care; they turn a blind eye to it all.

Here we are with a bill that goes to looking at this, to get plans in place that are going to be reviewed every two years so that everybody that is responsible, all these partners, need to put a plan in. But how will they be coordinated? How is that individual child going to benefit from going around in circles? They need better outcomes than just talk; they need real action to ensure that they are safe. Those areas that I spoke about earlier on I say again are the very areas that were highlighted as the goals:

•   Reducing the impact of child abuse and neglect including addressing the immediate and long-term needs of the child:

– safety;

– health;

– development;

– education; and

– to be heard.

Whether they are with their family under supervision or whether they are in the state system, these areas are highlighting what needs to be done. The reforms were highlighted here; there are 10 that are listed as major system reforms. The last ones were:

– a strengthened regulatory and oversight framework;

– a plan for practical self-determination for guardianship of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care and culturally competent service delivery; and

– a sector-wide approach to professional education and training and a greater development and application of knowledge to inform policy and service delivery.

It was Mary Wooldridge who appointed the commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people. That was out of this report, and I want to commend Mary Wooldridge again. It is all here; it has all been said before. But this government took no notice of it and has done nothing. The appalling situation of children in care, as I have said, has been a disgrace.

– an area-based approach to co-located intake with clear accountability for decision making on statutory intervention;

– strengthening the law and its institutions;

– out-of-home care funding and services aligned to a child’s needs;

The number one system reform is:

– a Vulnerable Children and Families Strategy – a whole-of-government vulnerability policy framework with the objective of focussing on a child’s needs …

If that had been done over the last 10 years rather than coming to this house and doing this bill and the next bill, maybe we would not have these figures of 11,000 kids in out-of-home care; 600 kids going missing when they are under residential care, under the care of the state; the numbers of children that have died; the numbers of children that are exposed to and have no boundaries around drug use or sexual exploitation; and the appalling systems that are just not there to support the workers that are working in this system to help these young people have a chance.

I make those comments because, whilst we are not opposing this bill, for obvious reasons – anything to strengthen it and improve it is better – it should have been done 10 years ago. It was there; it was laid out. It is all here in the Cummins inquiry. That is just the conclusion. Go and read the full report. It might help you, Minister. I do not envy the task of this; it is a very difficult task. But it is laid out: you have done nothing, and the results speak for themselves. Your government has failed these vulnerable children.

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (14:20): I rise today to speak to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. The Greens support measures and safeguards that improve outcomes, safety and wellbeing for all children in out-of-home care, care leavers and their families, and that includes the rights of a child being respected and nurtured under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Through the creation of the supporting stable and strong families scheme this bill creates a legislative framework where government ministers, the Chief Commissioner of Police and heads of government departments are jointly responsible for supporting the needs of children who have come into contact with the child protection system, care leavers and their families. The supporting stable and strong families scheme is a model that the Labor government has adopted from the corporate parenting model in Scotland. The idea is that the differing government departments work together to promote wraparound support for children in care and post care, with the intention of better coordination, planning, collaboration and cohesion in delivery of care and services. Essentially, ministers of these government departments and the SSSF partners answer the essential question: if this was my child, would I be satisfied with this care and support that they are receiving?

The reality is so many children in out-of-home care and care leavers are regarded as vulnerable groups. They are one of our most disadvantaged groups. Their odds are staggering. They have higher risks of poorer outcomes in education disruption, unemployment, housing instability and engagement in the justice system, and they are also often exposed to trauma and abuse before entering out-of-home care and within the out-of-home care system. Throughout their lives they face stigma because of their involvement with the child protection system. While many care leavers do go on to achieve great outcomes, those statistics are very low. Many also struggle without the proper safety nets.

I would like to speak more about the corporate parenting model imported from Scotland. While this model has received some positive reception by certain members of the sector, it does come with weaknesses. This model has received criticism due to its underdeveloped and tokenistic standards, leaving children in care feeling stigmatised, ignored by professionals and failed by the systems meant to protect them. According to the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, an inquiry in the UK into the corporate parenting principles revealed it is too broad and lacks enforceable standards, and the corporate parenting principles lack specificity and being action-focused.

As currently drafted, the bill lacks the sufficient accountability mechanisms, as highlighted in this UK inquiry, to really achieve its intended outcomes. Without stronger safeguards there is a real risk that responsibility for poor outcomes in the child protection system could be shifted away from the Minister for Children rather than addressed transparently and effectively. The Greens are not convinced that the model in its current form will avoid the same problems seen and raised in Scotland and the UK. In Victoria we already have many frameworks in place to respond to child protection. However, their practical implications still remain unseen. The Greens have concerns that the role of the scheme is subordinate to ministerial primary powers, which leaves the scheme unenforceable.

A prime example of this is the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework 2018–2023.

Its purpose was to set up a whole-of-government commitment to self-determination and to significant structural and systemic transformation. It was a framework that, in the government’s words, was meant to:

… set a clear direction for how government will ‘Plan’, ‘Act’, ‘Measure’ and ‘Evaluate’ to progress change across government, address inequity and deliver stronger outcomes for and with Aboriginal Victorians.

However, there was no significant change to increase funding to support this model and action all of these goals. There is a genuine risk that this framework, like many others introduced by this Labor government in the past, will fail to deliver and that the blame for child protection failures may be shifted across ministers or, worse, onto families.

We know from the Yoorrook Justice Commission how systemic and prolific racism is within Victoria’s child protection system. The Deputy Premier himself admitted in a speech:

Historic and ongoing biases and structural and everyday racisms create barriers to the best interests of the Aboriginal child and are to be recognised and overcome.

If this government is serious about overcoming these historical traumatic experiences, then it really needs to look in the mirror to ensure that these reforms do not become just a box-ticking exercise where they are seen to be doing the right thing and actually ensure the system of care is genuinely a safer space for vulnerable children, including Aboriginal children and families.

We know from various reports that Victoria’s child protection system needs a coordinated whole-of-government approach for the very obvious reason that this is what is needed to achieve the best outcomes for children and their families. The system as it stands continues to struggle with high caseloads, workforce strain, limited access to early intervention programs, placement instability and inconsistent decision-making. Of greatest concern is the growing and disproportionate rate of removal of Aboriginal children and young people from their families, a pattern which repeats the harm of the stolen generations and continues a painful colonial legacy that this state has a responsibility to confront and end. Every part of the government should be making every effort to reduce the removal of children from their families, firstly by supporting families to keep their children safe in their care. When out-of-home care is the only option, time in care should be kept to the absolute minimum necessary. We know that the state is a bad parent, given the history, and that children and young people in out-of-home care continue to suffer from worse outcomes in education, mental and physical health and employment and increased likelihood of involvement in the justice system.

All children have a right to safety, stable and affordable housing, education equity, quality health care and ultimately stability and support. Governments have a duty to uphold these rights, and that means that responses must be collaborative rather than working in silos. Child protection has carried most of the responsibility for intervening, resourcing and repairing harm, but the sector, as I mentioned earlier, is so overstretched that it cannot meet all of these demands while also providing stable, caring and meaningful support for children in care and post care. We need improvements in early intervention and adequate resourcing of child protective services. We need a stronger focus on prevention and care, rather than just crisis responses that do not yield sustainable and enduring outcomes for children and young people in care.

We support the principle of a genuine whole-of-government approach, stronger accountability and a sharper focus on stability for children who come into contact with government services, but our support comes with a clear expectation that this framework must be backed by real responsibility, real resourcing and real transparency. We have also heard from stakeholders that consultation has been inadequate during this process, an ongoing problem. Time and time again there has been a lack of good-faith consultation and meaningful engagement, in particular with Aboriginal stakeholders.

The Greens remain equally concerned that the current drafting does not mandate a duty to consult with Aboriginal people through the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, nor are SSSF partners required to engage with the Aboriginal children’s commissioner in the development of their SSSF plans. Victoria has the highest rate of First Nations children in out-of-home care, almost twice the national average. Reducing this over-representation must be central to any child protection reform, not treated as an afterthought.

The government has a duty, bound by the newly passed Statewide Treaty Act 2025, to embed Aboriginal self-determination into every aspect of child protection reform. This Labor government should be working towards the benchmarks set out in treaty, and it is shameful that they have not taken up this responsibility in this legislation meaningfully. We know the solutions to some of these issues in the child protection system already exist, and the Greens will continue to advocate for the implementation of all Yoorrook recommendations, as well as those recommendations put forward previously in various reports by the Commission for Children and Young People – for example, the establishment of a dedicated child protection system for First Peoples children and young people; enshrining prevention and early intervention as a guiding principle in the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005; increasing investment in Aboriginal community controlled organisations; and keeping First Nations children and young people connected to culture when they are placed in out-of-home care.

To strengthen and address some of the gaps I spoke about earlier in my speech we have a few amendments, which I request for the clerks to circulate now. These amendments come from Aboriginal-controlled legal services and community legal sector peak bodies. They seek to honour the era of treaty being signed a few months ago and to better support Aboriginal children and families, who sadly make up many of those in contact with the child protection system.

The first amendment makes changes to section 20I(d) to strengthen requirements on the SSSF scheme partners to comply with the recognition principles and the rights of Aboriginal children and families. This amendment is around strengthening the language in the bill beyond a passive acknowledgement. It requires SSSF partners to demonstrate compliance with the statement of recognition principles. It also legislates SSSF partners to actively enable the right of Aboriginal children to develop and maintain a connection with their family, community, culture, country and language.

The second amendment requires that the SSSF partners consult with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and the Aboriginal children’s commissioner as part of the process of preparing a SSSF plan. This ensures consultation is not just procedural but meaningful and directed toward accountability. This amendment is also about embedding Aboriginal-led oversight within the development of the SSSF plans.

And our final amendment, the third amendment, inserts a provision within section 20O, which requires that the SSSF progress report include an assessment from the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and the Aboriginal children’s commissioner on whether their SSSF partner is meeting their responsibility in relation to Aboriginal children and families.

The Greens continue to be committed to working with the government to deliver solutions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been calling for in the child protection system. While this bill is a step in the right direction, we must first address the root causes of involvement with the child protection system in the first place – drivers like poverty, housing insecurity and family violence. Without properly funding prevention and community-based supports, no ministerial and departmental coordination framework will be enough.

The Greens will not be opposing this bill today. We recognise the challenges it seeks to address and are of the view that ministers and departments must work together not just for the sake of children in out-of-home care, care leavers and their families, but to really ensure that they have the best chance to flourish in their futures, to have better access to education and better access to health care and to keep them away from the justice system.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:35): I am pleased to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. We know the phrase ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is true, and this bill makes changes to cross-departmental responsibilities to vulnerable young Victorians not dissimilar to the principle expressed above. This bill is about improving the care of some of our most vulnerable children in Victoria, children who are interacting with the child protection system of the Victorian government, and it is about improving those children’s lives. Many of these children have experienced abuse or witnessed abuse, and some of them experience post-traumatic trauma as a result, creating a whole range of challenges for them as they develop into adulthood. Some of them are continuing to experience challenging family dynamics. This bill creates a legislative framework to improve collaboration across government departments who are also responsible for elements of their care, especially in the preventative space, with the goal to improve outcomes for children and young families. ‘Outcomes’ sounds like a very bureaucratic word, but it essentially means healthier, stronger young people who are able to stay in school, able to stay in work and able to participate in society in an effective and constructive way.

The initial focus of the scheme will be specifically children for whom the Secretary of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing has parental responsibility, children subject to a family reunification or family preservation order and their families, and young people under the age of 25 who have left statutory care. This will focus resources on those with the highest need and ensure children and families get the support they need. Over time the focus will broaden to include children and young people and their families receiving or requiring family services support and those at risk of engaging with the child protection system. This will support the system to focus on early intervention to prevent more children and families from entering the child protection system in the first place.

This bill introduces shared responsibilities and facilitates multidisciplinary and integrated planning and service delivery across government agencies. It also introduces increased reporting on outcomes for children and families. This bill will create shared responsibilities across the Victorian government under the supporting stable and strong families scheme. All ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police will be given responsibility under the scheme. That means they will be required to take action to improve outcomes for vulnerable young Victorians involved in the state system. Ministers will set out how these responsibilities will be implemented in a supporting stable and strong families plan. Plans will set out a vision, measurable objectives and concrete actions. Ministers will table a report in Parliament on the progress towards those actions at the end of each two-year plan.

These changes draw upon successful experience in this in Scotland known as the corporate parenting model – a shocking name, if I might say. That scheme has operated successfully in Scotland since 2014. Corporate parenting, as they refer to it, refers to the collective responsibility of public bodies to care for and support children and young people who are looked after by the state.

Corporate parents include the government, local authorities, health boards, police, education bodies and other public agencies. They must act in the same way a good parent would. This means safeguarding wellbeing, promoting opportunities, listening to young people’s voices and supporting them to thrive into adulthood. Their responsibilities include improving educational attainment, physical and mental health, housing stability, employment opportunities and lifelong relationships. Corporate parenting is not limited to child protection. It includes young people vulnerable to state intervention. The ultimate goal is to reduce inequalities and improve long-term outcomes so that the young people experiencing care have the same life chances as their peers.

Scotland has seen a significant reduction in registrations for child protection since its corporate parenting program began. We are bringing these insights now to reform the Victorian approach. As the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare’s interim CEO Dr Michele Lonsdale stated:

Our sector leaders have long called for the Scottish model to be implemented and adapted to a Victorian context …

The bill makes it clear that raising children in care is a shared government responsibility, not the job of one department alone. Our government has reviewed the Scottish scheme and its outcomes. The bill before us today is therefore intended to bring similar operating principles into the Victorian system. The supporting stable and strong families scheme will ensure supporting at-risk children and families is no longer the responsibility of child protection alone. Every portfolio will play a role. We recognise that children’s lives are multidimensional. Their needs vary across education, health, housing and community safety, indeed often spanning all of these areas at once. This ensures families get the right help when they need it. It makes clear that supporting vulnerable children and young people is a whole-of-government responsibility, not just that of the Minister for Children.

Our approach goes further than the Scottish scheme by creating a robust framework to hold government to account. The Children’s Services Coordination Board will have responsibility for whole-of-government coordination. As I mentioned, all ministers will table a supporting stable and strong families plan for each of their portfolios in Parliament every two years. They will include actions to ensure that services are better targeted to the needs of at-risk children and families and delivering better outcomes. Plans will be informed by cross-government collaboration and key government priorities.

Another difference from the Scottish model is that it takes account of the needs of our First Nations people. Our approach differs from the Scottish model in that it recognises the specific need for recognition and support of the cultural identity of Aboriginal people. The Yoorrook Justice Commission report highlights that a key barrier to reunification for Aboriginal families is a lack of timely access to the services they need to support reunification. The bill directly responds to that. It requires decision-makers to have regard to and apply the recognition principles and to recognise and support the cultural identity of Aboriginal persons. Dallas Widdicombe, CEO of Bendigo & District Aboriginal Co-operative, has stated in relation to this bill:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Too often, portfolio silos limit coordinated action and fail to recognise the shared responsibility to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in statutory systems.

This bill is intended to address those issues, and I commend it to the house.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (14:44): I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. We sometimes see that the names or titles of bills can be a bit political, but certainly when it comes to supporting strong and stable families, that is an aspiration that I do support.

The purpose of the scheme is to promote a whole-of-government approach to supporting vulnerable children in the child protection system, their families and care leavers, and it gives government departments shared responsibility for people in the child protection system, requiring them to plan for and report to Parliament on how their respective portfolios will improve outcomes. I just want to highlight how important it is for kids to get a good start in life. We know that not all kids get a very good start at all. Time spent with kids is so important. Connecting with different generations is so important. We have seen the evidence. It does result in better health outcomes, better educational outcomes and better opportunities in life, but for some that is not the trajectory, they do not have a great start in life and they can end up in out-of-home care.

I do want to recognise the work of many people in our community who are doing their best to give young people the best opportunities. I know that around Bendigo there are many groups organising breakfasts at primary schools, because there are kids that do turn up to school with no food. There are chaplains doing amazing work. I remember going to Kyabram. They had their annual chaplaincy dinner last year. Liz Spicer has been working as a chaplain for so many years. We heard directly from kids that have really felt the benefits of that program, being able to meet and share a meal together. Just today I was talking to a guy, Brock, who is doing some volunteer work in Bendigo with the Street Peace program. They are working with disengaged youth around Bendigo, and they often meet in Bendigo Mall. They have had some really great outcomes where they have worked closely with young people. In one case there was someone that went into the Reject Shop and stole some goods. They picked that up, educated the young person and spoke with them, and they ended up going back to the Reject Shop, apologising and returning the goods. This is some of the work that is being done by volunteers. I have met with schools. I have been to schools, where some support workers are focused on wellbeing. They told me about the significant issues and challenges that they are facing in schools today that they have not seen previously. There are kids that are homeless that are attending school. These are the types of challenges that they are facing.

I have also met with foster carers who have told me about the challenges that they face and also the rewards that they face in being able to support kids who need that. Victoria clearly lags behind other states like New South Wales, which has increased the funding and support for foster carers, because there are significant costs involved, particularly in regional areas. There are long distances to travel to appointments. Some of these kids have very complex needs, and there are additional costs incurred with that and additional attention, support and services required. Right now in Victoria we have more people leaving the foster care system rather than coming in to assist, and I think that is something that we do really need to pay attention to, because when the foster care support is not available, that is where residential care can come into play. We know the statistics are very grim. I met with a young woman who grew up in residential care, and she talked about the direct impact that had on her life and on people that she knew and the terrible end result for a number of them because of what they had experienced in that environment. We have read and heard news reports that are simply horrific, and the needs are high.

Yet it is quite astounding, given the challenges that we face and given the cost pressures that families are under, that the government took the decision to cut Parentline last year. They cut funding for that program, and now Victoria is the only state without a parent support line, a dedicated service. Recently Nicole Werner highlighted on her very engaging social media – I encourage you to check it out if you have not – that a federal Labor member had actually sent out a list of phone numbers and included Parentline amongst them, which is quite extraordinary. The Liberals and the Nationals have made it clear that we will restore funding to Parentline if we are elected in November, because it is so important that small problems do not become big issues.

Giving kids the best start in life should be something that we all take an interest in. Many volunteers work in this space to help make a difference, but this bill is really focused on progress, plans and reports, annual reviews and department staff working together. Of course we do support more transparency and improved outcomes because they are desperately needed in this state. But what is not clear from this bill is whether spreading that responsibility, rather than it being in the child protection portfolio, will result in better outcomes. There are no enforceable obligations, and stakeholders were not sure if the plans and reports would lead to real change, clear accountability and proper funding. Stakeholders also raised concerns about inadequate consultation, which is very relevant given the committee inquiry report that was tabled in this chamber today about this government’s failure to consult with the community. That was reflected in the feedback received on this bill as well.

I know Ms Crozier highlighted in her contribution today the harm, abuse and exploitation of young children that continue to occur under this current government. There have been impacts from drug trafficking; there has been sexual exploitation, rape and suicide. When it comes to the most vulnerable in our society, I think about these kids trapped in a system that is failing to protect them. As Ms Crozier said, 600 kids in state care went missing last year. Now, I do recognise that there are people actively working in our community, professionals and volunteers, who are doing what they can to help make a difference to this system, and I certainly want to acknowledge their work and their dedication to helping others. But the number of reports is escalating, and we need to reverse this trend because every report does reflect a unique and personal story. It takes a village to raise a child. We hear that often, but we are all part of that village. An important role as MPs is to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves and who do not have a voice. This bill, as Ms Crozier said, is a plan for a plan when these kids need practical support and action.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (14:52): I rise to make a contribution to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025, which seeks to implement the supporting stable and strong families scheme. The bill aims to create a whole-of-government response to enhance service access and support earlier intervention for children, young people and families at risk of or involved with child protection, care services and family services systems. Under the scheme, all ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police will have responsibilities including the supporting stable and strong families group, which includes that cohort who are or have been engaged with or are at risk of entering the child protection system. A key aspect of the scheme will be the development and implementation by those entities of a supporting stable and strong families plan. The plan will be tabled in Parliament biannually and at the end of two years the relevant ministers will report on the outcomes of the plan.

This scheme is based on the Scottish model of corporate parenting, as we have heard, which was introduced in the UK in 2014. I will talk a bit more about that in a moment. This bill is supposed to complement the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025, which we will be debating later this day. While we are supportive of the stability bill, which represents a positive move forward in the child protection space, we have some misgivings about this bill. The idea of a holistic whole-of-government approach to child protection is a laudable ambition. We are entirely supportive of the objectives of the bill. It is just that it does not do much in practical terms. In his second-reading speech, Minister Carroll stated:

The Bill gives practical effect to this duty by introducing responsibilities across government, mandating integrated planning and service delivery across government areas such as housing, health, education, and justice.

That sounds great. He goes on to say:

The scheme will provide the framework for government to work together, to identify gaps and challenges, and to deliver better services to children and families, and decision makers will be held to account for making this happen.

The problem is we have already seen any number of frameworks legislated that have made no real difference to the lives of the people that they are intended to help. A very important and pertinent example is the Framework to Reduce Criminalisation of Young People in Residential Care, which was launched in February 2022 and co-signed by the departments of health and human services and justice and community safety and Victoria Police. As the name suggests, it is aimed at reducing the number of young people in residential care who end up being criminalised for behaviour that does not need a law and order response. I have asked the Minister for Children about the rollout of this framework on a few occasions and was indeed once commended on the constructive way I phrased a question, which was pleasing. But despite the enlistment of various departments and Victoria Police in implementing the framework, it has not really made much of a difference. Nothing much has changed.

VALS, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, continue to see children who are policed and charged due to their behaviour in residential care being criminalised, and they suggest that this might be because the framework is a long-term planning document rather than a policy that establishes standards for police and care providers to actually meet. I fear we are seeing the same thing with this scheme. It is all very broad and very vague. There are no real actionable responsibilities and there is no accountability other than the requirement to table plans and reviews in Parliament, and there are certainly no resources to support it. The scheme is not necessarily harmful, but it definitely has the potential to draw resources away from other more useful practical initiatives. Having said that, some stakeholders we have spoken to do fear it may do more harm than good. VALS has stated:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

In our view what is being proposed is unlikely to lead to substantial reforms to the child protection system, nor improvements in how the state responds to the needs of Aboriginal children and families. Our main concern is that what is being proposed in the bill distracts from transformational community-led reform that is driven by Aboriginal people and communities.

VALS have real concerns that if families are not seen to be engaging with the programs, it will be used against them and they will be further disadvantaged, and God knows they have seen that often enough. There are no details on how the scheme will operate, nor how the principles will influence decision-making at the individual specific case level, nor how it will compel the various agencies to actually work together. What is needed is some genuine and long overdue investment in the sorts of services and early intervention that do make a difference in keeping families stable and strong: housing, health and family violence services. The bill does not do anything to address these major service gaps. Without investment and accountability it risks being just another tick-the-box exercise.

There were similar concerns raised about the effectiveness of the Scottish corporate parenting model on which this bill is based. The UK all-party parliamentary group inquiry into the scheme in 2023 acknowledged that:

… under-resourcing and inconsistent implementation have limited corporate parenting full potential.

And it acknowledged that:

… the current corporate parenting principles are too broad and lack enforceable standards.

The inquiry recommended that the framework be amended to be more action-focused and specific, ensuring that organisations are held accountable for tangible outcomes. Stakeholders such as VALS, Djirra and the Federation of Community Legal Centres were also alarmed by the lack of consultation around the development of this bill. This bill apparently came out of nowhere with the barest minimum consultation.

At the end of the day, do we really need to import a scheme from overseas, particularly one with questionable effectiveness? We have already had any number of inquiries and reports that deliver a comprehensive blueprint for reforming the child protection system, including the Yoorrook for Justice report and successive inquiries by the Commission for Children and Young People.

The Greens will be moving amendments to try and strengthen compliance and reporting, which we will be supporting and which we commend to the house. Legalise Cannabis Victoria will be supporting this bill. We sincerely hope this scheme will be resourced and implemented in good faith and that it will improve the outcomes of children and families caught up in the child protection system. At the very least we hope it will not distract the government from implementing meaningful reforms that demonstrably will.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:00): I rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. This is a bill which, following extensive consultation, seeks to amend and improve the way in which institutions of the Victorian government approach and carry out their duties and responsibilities towards vulnerable children, vulnerable young people and vulnerable families. The bill seeks legislative change to ensure that the government approaches child protection with greater cross-departmental cooperation, an all-of-government approach to child protection and strengthened ministerial accountability. The ultimate aim of this is to improve service delivery and early interventions such that we can see better outcomes for some of the most vulnerable Victorians. Improving cross-departmental collaboration and better utilising existing resources to improve outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and families is not an idea which started with this bill. It has been the government’s priority in the child protection space for some time now, and with this bill it is being enshrined into law.

Getting policy and service delivery in this area right is always difficult, which is why the stakeholder consultation which went into this bill is so important. It is also why new requirements for mandatory reporting for ministers, department heads and chief commissioners of police are so important. The vulnerable people who rely on or who have come into contact with the child protection and care system deserve to know that those responsible for running these systems are held to the highest levels of accountability. So too does the Victorian community at large deserve to know that these high standards of accountability are being fulfilled, standards which compel responsible individuals to create a plan for action related to their portfolio to protect vulnerable young people and to report publicly on their own performance in fulfilling those plans and improving outcomes. Those involved with the child protection system deserve it because it is their circumstances, their wellbeing and their life opportunities which are affected by the decisions made by the responsible individuals identified in this bill. The broader community deserves it because how a society treats its most vulnerable children and young people speaks to the moral character of that society. They deserve to know and be able to trust that children and young people in our community who face difficult life circumstances and who may have come into contact with the child protection and care systems will be given adequate care and that the system will run efficiently, effectively and in the best interests of those who it is charged with protecting and caring for.

This bill builds on reforms made by the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025, which supports families reuniting with their children following a reunification order from the Children’s Court of Victoria. By seeking to reduce the duration of the child’s contact with the statutory system where appropriate, that bill makes important progress towards creating a system which is better equipped to create the best possible outcomes for those in its care. This bill seeks to build on these reforms by ensuring that child protection is not the exclusive responsibility of the dedicated child protection services but is the responsibility of the whole of the Victorian government. This model seeks to replace a reactive approach to child protection with an approach which is proactive and which enshrines the collective responsibility of all parts of the government and all ministers for the protection of children into law. In doing so this bill will promote greater collaboration across departments, promote better early intervention and help families stay together, and it will help to ensure that each case is given the individual care and assistance suited to it.

I will go a little further into the specific mechanics of this piece of legislation shortly. For a moment I want to discuss why taking a whole-of-government approach to child protection is so important. I have already referenced the way that child protection should be seen as not just an occupation of specialists and social workers but a societywide moral obligation. We cannot take the view that vulnerable children should be left in a box; nor should they be the responsibility of one small corner of government when the complexities of each of the individual cases mean they have diverse needs relating to many different areas of government.

This government recognises that this level of complexity is inherent to the field of child protection and therefore is something the government must design its system around. The bill adjusts the existing legislation to better reflect the fact that due to this complexity all areas of government should have a part to play in keeping young people safe and keeping families together in this state. In order to ensure that what we are discussing here – the importance of a properly functioning child protection system – does not remain just rhetoric used on the floor of Parliament, this bill creates a proper framework for government accountability and reporting.

To address some of the specific mechanics of the bill in creating a new framework to facilitate best cross-departmental cooperation in the field of child protection, this bill will establish the supporting stable and strong families group. This group will be comprised of children under the age of 18 who are or have been child protection clients; children under the age of 18 who are receiving, have received or require but are not receiving services from a community service; children under the age of 18 whose primary family carer is receiving, has received or requires but is not receiving services from a community service; carer leavers under the age of 25; and parents and household members of children subject to family preservation orders and family reunification orders. Initially the focus will primarily be on those with the most need for government support, being those currently involved with the system and recent care leavers under the age of 25, with the aim of broadening the focus to include all of those in that group.

The bill also designates responsible individuals and outlines what their responsibilities will be under the law. The responsible individuals will be the ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Police. The responsibilities of these relate to service delivery, promoting and protecting the wellbeing of children and care leavers and ensuring that children and care leavers experience equality and opportunity, ensuring that those in contact with the system receive the same opportunities as their peers outside the system do. Additionally, responsible individuals will be obligated to ensure that the child protection measures which they take on behalf of Aboriginal children are just and respect the cultural identity of the children. Taken as a whole, child protection has played a significant part of the parliamentary agenda in recent months. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (15:07): I rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025 and wish to indicate from the outset that I will be supporting it. This bill will establish the supporting strong and stable families, or SSSF, scheme, creating shared responsibility across government departments for the wellbeing of vulnerable children and care leavers. The scheme will also shift the system’s focus from immediate safety alone to children’s long-term physical, cultural and developmental wellbeing. Importantly, the bill requires SSSF partners to table their plans and progress reports in Parliament, hopefully providing a level of accountability to ensure their responsibilities have been met.

The SSSF scheme is directly modelled on the Scottish corporate parenting model, which was later also adopted across the United Kingdom. This model has demonstrated that embedding cross-government responsibility can improve outcomes for children. That being said, evidence from Scotland and the UK has shown that improvements can still be made, and there are differences between what they have implemented and this bill. In a UK inquiry into care-experienced children and young people, participants still reported experiences of stigma, feeling ignored by professionals and being failed by systems meant to protect them. It has shown that proper resourcing and consistent implementation are required to ensure the model can truly succeed.

I have shared concerns with the government that the bill does not include adequate requirements to engage with children and young people in the development of the scheme or for partners to collaborate in the development and implementation of plans. Both of these areas are also key differences between this bill and the Scottish model, which sets out clear collaboration requirements. English legislation requires local authorities to encourage children and young people in the scope of the scheme to express their views, wishes and feelings and to take these into account. These will be issues I will be exploring in the committee of the whole, and I do thank the minister’s office for her engagement on this question and the bill more broadly. On a similar note, I will be supporting the Greens amendments, which would particularly improve requirements to consult First Nations communities and actively develop connection with their culture. I should not need to explain to the house why this is so critical.

First Nations communities are overwhelmingly impacted by the failings in our child protection system. I sincerely hope that the passage of this bill and the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025 later today does not act as an excuse for the government to ignore other desperately needed improvements. Despite concerns about its implementation I must be clear: this bill is about enacting the exact kind of early intervention that is so often spoken about in public policy spaces. It is a significant step towards a more collaborative whole-of-government approach to child and family wellbeing. It is recognising the reality already faced by the family services sector.

Children in the system rely on supports well beyond just one portfolio, particularly education, health, housing and justice. Young people leaving out-of-home care are amongst the most vulnerable in Australia, disproportionately experiencing poor outcomes across health, social and economic domains. I would like to highlight some figures to show the extent of this. As of 30 June 2024, 9208 children in Victoria were in out-of-home care. One in three care leavers become parents soon after leaving care. The 2020 Keep Caring: Systemic Inquiry into Services for Young People Transitioning from Out-of-Home Care from the Commission for Children and Young People found that a third of Victoria’s young people leaving out-of-home care are homeless within three years. Young people in out-of-home care are also more likely to face educational engagement challenges and are more likely to face the criminal justice system.

To demonstrate the clear need for a whole-of-government approach I would like to share one example provided by a stakeholder, which is aggregated from two family situations that they have dealt with. A grandmother is caring for four children in a kinship care arrangement. Two children have disabilities. One is eligible for NDIS support; one has been deemed ineligible. The grandmother lives on the poverty line, and care payments do not meet all of the children’s needs. One parent, who has mental health challenges, remains in the children’s lives. Unresolved tensions between parent and grandparent create ongoing challenges. Without a car and with limited public transport access it is difficult to get the children to school and to appointments or for the grandmother to access the support that she needs. The older children are not attending school regularly, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, sexual exploitation or criminal offending and at risk of deeper involvement in the statutory system. The other parent, who has a history of family violence, is currently incarcerated but will be released in several months, raising urgent questions about how this family is going to be kept safe.

Families with complex, often intergenerational challenges need a coordinated multiservice response to keep children safe and nurtured, connected to the supports that will enable them to grow and to lead healthy, strong and productive lives. All of this goes directly to the core purpose of this bill. These challenges cannot be faced within the silo of the child protection system and require the whole-of-government approach established through this bill. I want to thank all stakeholders who have enthusiastically engaged with my office on this bill, in particular the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare. I genuinely hope that the supporting strong and stable families scheme does not, as the opposition describes it, become yet another plan for a plan. I am, like many others, hopeful and optimistic about the kinds of coordinated outcomes that this piece of legislation can achieve, and I commend it to the house.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:14): I am glad to rise to speak to this bill. I think it is really important that the government takes a holistic view on caring for children and supporting families. The fact that we are bringing responsibility to more ministers and department heads right across government, getting collective responsibility for our most important asset for Victoria – that is, our next generation – and ensuring that we are getting better outcomes I think is incredibly important. I was fortunate enough to volunteer in fostering, which I spoke about back in my first speech when I first came into this place.

It was an incredibly rewarding time for me to work with and support Victorian youth and see the incredible people that they are and support them on a journey that could sometimes be really difficult. Whatever touchpoint it is, whether it is early education, education pathways seeing them through their teenage years out into skills and higher education to get them into that workforce, these points of contact all the way through their lives focus on supporting them to get the best outcomes, to get the best health outcomes, to get the best educational outcomes, to not leave them behind as they make their way towards adulthood and, when they do reach adulthood, to be able to have a fulfilling life, a life where they have the opportunities that we hope that all Victorians have – to go on and be able to afford to buy a home, have a family if they wish. This holistic wraparound I think is incredibly important and makes a difference to the lives of so many. I spoke in my first speech about my wonderful cousin, who went through a similar pathway and is now doing an incredible job. She has just gone through aged care and into nursing, with her kids and whatnot. I am incredibly proud to support this bill and everything it does. I will leave my contribution there.

 Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (15:17): At the outset can I acknowledge the contributions of members in this place on this important bill. The bill before us today amends the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 to create a nationally leading framework – indeed an internationally leading framework – in Victoria to improve collaboration across the government to improve outcomes for children, young people and families at risk of or already involved with child protection. We are introducing, in a legislative sense, shared responsibilities across government and facilitating integrated planning and service delivery across areas such as housing, health, education and justice. Importantly, the initial focus will be on children and young people and their families engaged with child protection, including parents and household members of children on family reunification orders and family preservation orders, as well as those in care and recent care leavers. Without offending anticipation, I also draw the attention of this chamber to the focus on parents of children on family reunifications under the initial focus of the scheme. Over time the focus will broaden to the rest of the priority cohort, including children and young people and their families receiving or requiring family services support and those at risk of engagement with child protection, driving an increased focus on early intervention.

As members in this place have noted, the reform before us today is informed by the Scottish corporate parenting model operating since 2014. I have spoken to officials firsthand and seen the impact these reforms have had on their child protection system. Whilst in their discussions with me they have shown the impact on children and young people in care, the model is also having an important impact on driving early intervention before problems escalate. In 2022–23 the Scottish child protection system experienced a 24 per cent reduction in child protection registrations and a 27 per cent reduction in children starting to be looked after, as it is termed in the Scottish system, since 2015–16. In comparison, Victoria had an increase in substantiations of 4 per cent over the same time. In that same timeframe the Scottish system also had a 23 per cent decrease in the number of children on the child protection register and a 20 per cent decrease in the number of looked-after children. Over the same time Victoria experienced a 9 per cent increase in the number of children in care or on care and protection orders.

Over time I want this nation-leading framework to have the same impact for Victoria’s child protection system, but I also recognise the need to go further than Scotland to have an approach that better supports coordination and accountability.

This is through legislating the role of the Children’s Services Coordination Board to support the administration of the scheme, providing for specific outcome measures to be prescribed, ensuring clear data on progress being made and requiring ministers to table progress reports in Parliament, holding them to account for the impact they are making.

I see the promise in this framework before us today, and I want to acknowledge Mrs Werner in the other place for the bipartisan approach and the engagement that both the shadow minister and her team have had with my office on this bill. For this framework to be enduring, it must be bipartisan. I acknowledge and thank Mrs Werner for her support. When child protection policy is above politics, it shows the best of our political system. The bill – without, again, intending anticipation – and another we will discuss later today have been the result of significant consultation over numerous years.

The child protection and family services sector have called for the establishment of a corporate parent model in Australia for a significant period of time, and whilst it is often dangerous in these circumstances to single some people out, there are a few that I want to note in particular. Karen Heap, the CEO of the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative and president of the Aboriginal Children and Young People’s Alliance, spoke to me on how we need to better break down the silos across government to drive integrated support for children in care. This message has been strong in the three years I have been engaging with the Aboriginal community controlled organisations: families do not work in silos and government should not either. Anne McLeish and Kinship Carers Victoria have stated that the apparent hesitancy within the Victorian Parliament to pass the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025 has carers baffled. This bill has arisen from long-held discussions between the office of the Minister for Children, the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and agencies across the child protection sector and has support from kinship carers. Kinship care is the largest form of out-of-home care in Victoria, with kinship carers raising the vast majority of Victoria’s vulnerable children. Therefore the opinions of kinship carers matter in all deliberations about what is best for children.

I want to particularly acknowledge Paul McDonald at Anglicare Victoria. Through his roles at both Anglicare and Home Stretch, Paul has been a constant advocate for the corporate parent approach in Victoria, and it was Paul who first linked me with Mark Riddell, the national implementation adviser for care leavers in the UK, who has offered valuable insights into how their approach could be adapted to the Victorian context through this bill. I also want to acknowledge the previous CEO of the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare and the now National Children’s Commissioner Deb Tsorbaris and also the interim CEO at the centre Dr Michele Lonsdale. Both Deb and Michele have well articulated the voice of organisations and individuals they represent in their advocacy for this approach. Michele stated in a recent public statement:

Our sector leaders have long called for the Scottish model to be implemented and adapted to a Victorian context …

In addition, the feedback and insights from forums such as the Aboriginal Children’s Forum, the broader children and family services sector and the ministerial youth advisory committee, made up of young people with lived experience, have been key to the development of this reform. As well, conversations with parents and carers through a series of round tables ensured as a government we were hearing directly from carers on their experiences of supporting children in care in Victoria and vulnerable families. The ministerial youth advisory committee – as I said, made up of young people in care – emphasised in their discussion with me on this reform that there was a need to have public accountability and to ensure that every minister delivers a plan and is held accountable. As noted in the second-reading speech for this bill, the Aboriginal Children’s Forum spoke to the strength of community and the shared obligation to raise children doing it tough. Through this bill, this is exactly what we are doing, through every minister and through every portfolio, ensuring that plans are tabled in Parliament every two years and at the end of the two years a progress report is tabled in this place, because we agree that this must be a systemic approach. And to improve collaboration, we are ensuring that the Children’s Services Coordination Board has new functions in monitoring system performance and coordinating the implementation of the scheme.

I did want to address briefly a few elements that have been raised within the debate, in particular the partners as they are defined in the bill being required to take actions that might conflict with their primary duties. As provided for under section 20L(1)(e), the bill requires a plan to be set out if a partner’s functions under this scheme conflict or are incompatible with their primary functions, duties and powers or duties at common law or in equity and the extent and impact of this incompatibility.

There has also been much discussion around collaboration. The bill encourages and facilitates collaboration between supporting stable and strong families partners by enabling the preparation of joint plans by two or more supporting stable and strong families partners who are ministers; requiring supporting stable and strong families partners who are ministers to take into account guidance provided by the Children’s Services Coordination Board; requiring supporting stable and strong families partners who are ministers to have regard to advice provided by other ministers and the intersection between supporting stable and strong families and government priorities in their supporting plans; requiring that supporting stable and strong families plans include a statement of how regard has been given to the outcome measures in determining the plan of actions; providing a function for the Children’s Services Coordination Board to provide advice to the responsible minister in relation to the intersection between supporting stable and strong families responsibilities and government priorities, the preparation of the plans and whether new or revised outcome measures may be required; and, further, providing a function for the Children’s Services Coordination Board to issue guidance to supporting stable and strong families partners, including on key priorities to be addressed.

I also want to address the question of oversight, and I think this was one particular matter that was also raised by Ms Gray-Barberio in relation to quoting from a report from the UK. My apologies, Ms Gray-Barberio, if I have wrongly attributed that to you when someone else mentioned that. But as I said in my opening remarks, accountability and oversight were indeed one of the matters that we have discussed at length with representatives of the UK government and in particular the Scottish government and have also sought to address through the provisions in this bill. That is why I say and why I think they would say that in many respects we are overtaking their legislation.

I also reject the premise that First Peoples were not consulted through. Indeed, as I said in my acknowledgements, one of the first people who spoke to me about this idea was the president of the Aboriginal children’s alliance. But through years of listening and engagement with the members of the Aboriginal Children’s Forum as a whole and advocacy from First Peoples organisations such as the alliance, we have pursued the legislation before us today.

Regarding the recognition principles that were legislated unanimously by this chamber a few years ago, new section 20I(d)(i) ensures supporting stable and strong families partners have a responsibility in relation to Aboriginal persons to have regard to and apply the recognition principles. So we would say that the bill does indeed already do that.

This bill has been a long time in the making. I acknowledge those who have been advocates of it from the beginning and those who have been consulted and provided us with their wisdom, from our own amazing community stakeholders here in Victoria to those overseas. I particularly want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the department and my office, and I am very pleased to commend the bill to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Clause 1 (15:29)

Georgie CROZIER: Minister, I referred in my contribution to Cummins report, which was done by in 2012, Report on theProtecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry.

In the conclusion of that – I am not sure if you heard – there were the major system reforms. The first one was a vulnerable children and family strategy, a whole-of-government vulnerability policy framework with the objective of focusing on a child’s needs. Could you explain to the house the difference between those reforms that were suggested by the Cummins report and what you are trying to do here, given I understand that it is the Scottish model but it still goes to the overarching objective I think of having a whole-of-government vulnerability framework. Is that correct?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: What we are doing here is – I know you understand the Scottish corporate model – as I said in my concluding remarks, we have taken our inspiration in large part from the Scottish model. We do indeed in a number of ways go further than the Scottish model, but we are responding to what we see today as the challenges in the system and not responding to Cummins.

Georgie CROZIER: I note in your summing-up you acknowledged the dialogue I think with Mrs Werner, and I have been speaking with her as well throughout the course of the last couple of weeks. One of the concerns I think she heard from a number of stakeholders was about various bits of consultation. I think there has been a large degree of consultation, from what I can understand, but there were perhaps groups that were not consulted. But to go back to the model, some of the feedback that she has received is that it seems to be overly bureaucratic and process-driven. The Scottish model, if I am correct, mandates collaboration between public bodies, whereas this Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025 (SSSF) makes joint planning optional and creates no enforceable rights. Is that an accurate assessment?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: There is a bit in that question. If I leave something out, feel free to come back to me. But at its heart, as you acknowledge, there has been a large amount of consultation. One of the things that people have raised was that a number of things in the Scottish model were indeed – I do not want to say not bureaucratic enough, but there was in many respects a promise that needed to be made as to how you bring it all together. What we have tried to do in a framework sense is to incorporate into what we have here – it is not intended to be overly bureaucratic, but it is intended to provide that there is an overall Children’s Services Coordination Board that can ensure that plans are complementary; that where systems need to work together, the children’s services board can bring that work together in a collaborative way; and that there will be specific outcome measures that are able to be reported against. Therefore in many respects we are one of the most transparent – and you and I might go toe to toe about this at other times – in how we account for our child protection data as it is, between the Productivity Commission, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and what we publicly choose to report in any case. But what this will do is create outcome measures, agreed and tabled, that will then be able to be publicly reported against, and everyone will have that visibility and be able to hold them to account. While it is not intended to create a bureaucratic imposition for anyone, it is intended to ensure that there is that level of accountability that was in many respects missing from the original version of the Scottish model.

Georgie CROZIER: Again, just in relation to that reporting obligation and the practical application, you have got a number of ministers that are responsible. Can you outline which ministers they will be?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: All of them. Every minister will have to table a plan that shows how their department is –

Georgie CROZIER: Every minister in government?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Every minister will table their own corporate parent plan, plus the Chief Commissioner of Police, for example. But there will be that cooperation, and there will also be that opportunity for the children’s services board to bring those plans together, not necessarily to merge them but to ensure that they have oversight or that where there is a joint activity that could be a joint activity. I am ad-libbing here now, but you have both me and Minister Carroll in the Department of Education. There may indeed be opportunities for us to work on some things collaboratively. There may also be other things that are very specific to schools or that are very specific to early education settings.

Georgie CROZIER: I think you have misinterpreted me, Minister. You just referred to education and yourself, and I was clarifying: is it every minister in every department – local government, planning – that is going to develop these plans, or is it just specifically relating to child protection, like health, education, police? That is what I am just trying to work out: is it that every single minister in government will have to do a plan? You are nodding yes?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Yes.

Georgie CROZIER: Therefore my next question is – that seems enormous. So the coordination board will be overseeing all of those plans, and as you said, there might be some duplication. I think that is where the concern is around the bureaucracy and the process and the duplication of how those plans are all married together – and then they have got an obligation to report. But I am wondering: if they all come together with their plans – the Minister for Local Government has their plan in relation to this, the Minister for Education has their plan; everybody else has their plans – I fail to understand why they are not focused in the particular areas where the bill itself sets out the definitions and partly where I was going to too with the Cummins inquiry and the outcome areas which you specifically highlight: health, education, justice, housing, Aboriginal self-determination, employment. I see those ministerial responsibilities, and I am just wondering how all of the others will then have a role to play without the coordination board being totally overridden with a lot of plans that are sitting in a folder without actually doing what they are intended to do.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: That is right. As you said, the domains, if you like – health, education, justice, housing, Aboriginal self-determination and employment – are where we want to see improved outcomes for vulnerable children and families. It is, as the government contends with this piece of legislation, the responsibility of the whole of government to ensure that every part of government is working to do its bit to ensure that we can achieve against the outcomes that will be set in each of those domains. There may be more work for some departments – education – than there might be for others, and certainly the work that has happened in the UK and particularly in Scotland has been whole of government in different ways. There might be things that the transport minister could do to facilitate better transport opportunities for children living in care to be able to access a particular school or whatnot. So there are ways in which that work can come together, and there are certainly roles for each and every minister in government in what we envisage here as an opportunity to ensure that as a whole of government we are delivering a service system that provides for children and vulnerable families.

Georgie CROZIER: I understand that in terms of the responsibility of each of those ministers. So you as the minister for child protection will have ultimate oversight – is that the case? Who will oversee to make sure that the work is actually being done? Is that the coordination board with those elements, or is it you as minister?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Ultimately it will be the Parliament, Ms Crozier. The outcome measures will be agreed and will be tabled, and the corporate plans will then have to be tabled in Parliament by each and every minister to say ‘This is what we’re going to do to meet these outcomes.’ Then the Parliament will ultimately be responsible for holding those ministers to account in meeting those outcomes.

Georgie CROZIER: In terms of the data collection – and I spoke in my debate about some of the horrific statistics that we are dealing with, the numbers of investigations being undertaken, the number of children that have gone missing under care – who has responsibility? Is that under police or is that under child protection? How many children are attending school – is all that data going to be collected and put in these reports to Parliament? Is that what this bill intends to do?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said, Ms Crozier, the outcome measures will be agreed. One outcome measure in relation to the schools plan could be school attendance, and then that outcome measure would need to be reported on by the education minister – both the strategies in terms of how they will influence school attendance for this vulnerable cohort and then also what the outcomes are. That would be in the plan and reported to Parliament, and Parliament have the opportunity to hold the education minister to account on that.

Georgie CROZIER: But will it be data? Will it be number of children in the system at any one point in time, number of children attending school? I appreciate it is hard in many instances in this area to be exact, but if you know that roughly over a six-month period or a three-month period X number of children are in state care and only 60 per cent are turning up to school – and I have got no idea of the data – will that be reflected in those reports to Parliament? I understand what you are trying to do is get better educational attainment and outcomes, but surely you have got to have data points, like we do in health. We actually have response times and the number of people waiting for surgery, and they are three-monthly data points. Will this bill have similar data points?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: That is my intention, Ms Crozier. Examples could include school attendance, learning outcomes, completion rates for children in out-of-home care, access to mental health assessments for at-risk children in the mental health portfolio, housing parents on family reunification orders who receive access to housing from the public housing waiting list and children entering care who have received a health assessment and how many of those are then connected with the necessary services. It is absolutely my intention – in the same way as we see it in other parts of government, and in my view, in many respects, we have not done it enough in this regard – that this is a legislative framework that provides for us to do exactly what you are asking.

Georgie CROZIER: That is excellent to have that clarification. My final couple of questions are regarding the police, given their prominence in this bill and their lead. I made comments around sexual exploitation. No-one wants to see this happen – I understand that – or the criminal activity that is undertaken by perpetrators who are exploiting these young, vulnerable children in care. The police have a major role in this, and for the children that are in care there is no doubt that they would be caught up in the criminal justice system, and the police have a role to try and keep them out. So that lead role for police – do they have the same reporting? Are they going to be reporting, or do they have a specific role that they need to play, given the prominence that they have in this model that you have got in this legislation?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The Minister for Police will report in the same way as all of the other ministers and the Premier will report. They will work with the police commissioner. I have had discussions in the preparation of this bill with both the previous acting chief commissioner and the new chief commissioner about exactly these issues that you raise. Indeed one of the very good examples in Scotland is the police’s corporate parent plan in terms of how they work with vulnerable cohorts and also the intersection of that with some of their work. You cannot take a loan, if you like, from the corporate parent model without some of the other working crime prevention in the Scottish model as well. They actually intersect.

But certainly we have had those discussions. I would also just add, for the record: this is not in any way intended to prevent or interfere with the operations of police, but certainly it is intended that the Minister for Police will table a plan and work with police in the operation of that plan.

Georgie CROZIER: Minister, what role will the commissioners for children and young people have – both the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People and more broadly? What role will they have in terms of the reporting and what they will do, given that the reporting is now going to be tabled and reported to Parliament on a regular basis? What role will they have and how will they work with the whole-of-government approach as well?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The Commission for Children and Young People obviously maintains its independent oversight functions, and the commission can continue to recommend policy, program and funding reforms, as it does now, across government and in relation to any of the work of government, including that it may be consulted in the design of specific initiatives or implementation of those initiatives, for example. However, it would be unusual for an independent oversight body to have a formal role in being consulted about the models that they would then be responsible for oversighting, if you like. But their independent oversight functions remain and extend to these elements as well.

Georgie CROZIER: So they will have the same reporting?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Yes, they do not do a plan.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: Minister, just for clarification, what is the role of the minister and their department in relation to the scheme? This is just in relation to understanding expectations around administering and ensuring that all SSSF partners are being accountable to the plans and the progress reports.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am not sure if I fully understand your question, Ms Gray-Barberio, so feel free to pull me up. The oversight is ultimately with the Parliament, so the role of each and every minister, including the Premier, is to table their plan, apply their plan and then account for their plan. But ultimately the oversight role belongs to the Parliament.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: Thank you, Minister, for clarifying that. Just following that, when it comes to information sharing, how will the scheme ensure that gaps are not still wide open when it comes to the wellbeing of children in care, especially care leavers with the barriers that they face? How will the government ensure that information-sharing loopholes and gaps are closed up?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The bill intends that collaboration will be similar in practice to that of the Scottish corporate parent scheme. As I spoke to in my summing-up, Ms Gray-Barberio, that aim is to be achieved in different ways, but ultimately the bill encourages and facilitates collaboration between partners by enabling the preparation of joint plans, as I was saying to Ms Crozier, by two or more SSSF partners who are ministers, if that is required – I do not have the written section here, but I can get that for you if you need it; requiring SSSF partners who are ministers to take into account guidance provided by the Children’s Services Coordination Board in preparing their SSSF plans, which would be new section 20K(2) of the act; requiring partners who are ministers to have regard to advice provided by other ministers and the intersection between SSSF and government priorities in preparing their plans – that would be new section 20K(3) of the act; requiring that plans include a statement of how regard has been given to the outcome measures in determining the plan of actions, and that would be new section 20L(1)(c) of the act; providing a function for the board to provide advice to the responsible minister in relation to the intersection between the SSSF – it needs a better acronym, because it is a tongue twister –

A member interjected.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: ‘Triple S F’, yes – responsibilities and government priorities, the preparation of plans and whether new or revised outcome measures may be required, which would be new section 15(c) of the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005; and providing a function for the board to issue guidance to partners, including key priorities to be addressed in the plans, which would be new section 15(d)(ii) of the act.

While these provisions of the bill are framed differently to section 60 of the Scottish legislation, it is important to note that drafting of legislation provisions is not always directly aligned and not applicable across jurisdictions, which is why organisations like the centre for excellence and others have asked for it to be applied in the Victorian context, and that is exactly what we have done and responded to. It has been necessary to adapt the Scottish model to suit the Victorian context, including to account for differences in how our government is structured and how laws are drafted. The intent of the bill is that the SSSF partners will produce and implement their plans collaboratively across government while retaining the same flexibility to tailor the degree of collaboration based on their priorities under the scheme and what it is that they are indeed contributing to the domains. The governance and oversight provided by the board will be critical in ensuring that there is a whole-of-government collaboration embedded in the scheme.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: Will you be expecting to see higher rates of reunification from the implementation of this bill? I think in your summing up you said the Scottish government saw a downward trend in child protection, but the model was actually introduced in 2014. That is seven to eight years where they actually started to see that trend going down. You also said that this is going to go further than the Scottish model. In saying that, do you have KPIs that you are working towards to ensure that it is not going to take eight years to see a downward trend, or could you possibly let the chamber know: have you done any possible modelling around it as well to see what that would look like and how long that might take?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I would love to have a magic wand and wave it and instantly resolve many of the issues we all deal with day in, day out, but the reality is that reform takes time. The quotes that you referred to that I quoted in my summing up are from 2022–23 in the Scottish child protection system, and I was comparing this to the Victorian context to show what had happened in a period of time in Scotland versus what had happened in a period of time in Victoria – countries that, whilst very different, also have some similarities in how you could apply this type of model. I was using the 2022–23 data to show that in Scotland they experienced a 24 per cent reduction in child protection registrations and a 27 per cent reduction in children starting to be looked after, as they call it in the Scottish system. That is since 2015–16, so that is over time. In comparison Victoria has had an increase in that same period of time of over 4 per cent. In that same timeframe the Scottish system also had a 23 per cent decrease in the number of children on the child protection register and a 20 per cent decrease in the number of looked-after children. Over the same time Victoria experienced a 9 per cent increase in the number of children in care. I was taking those periods of time to show what had happened here in Victoria versus what had happened in Scotland. In many ways we are hopeful we have the vision that what we have achieved through this bill, through establishing this type of a framework, will actually have the whole-of-government levers, if you like, on making sure we get the best outcome for these children – an outcome that any parent would want for their own child – that that is considered by each and every minister, not just by whoever happens to be the child protection minister of the day, and that we use all levers available across government to ensure that we are getting the best outcome for these children and families.

For my comments in relation to reunification orders, without offending anticipation of the subsequent bill that we also have to consider, I have the very strong view that in order to support families to reunify in the best interests of children such as it is safe to do so then we need to make sure – and I know you would agree with me on this – that we provide for children and families all of the services they need that support that reunification.

My hope, my vision, is that through a framework, a system like this, where we hold every minister accountable, where the Parliament holds every minister accountable, where, to Ms Crozier’s point, we have the data in front of us and everyone makes decisions based on what the data is, we then are all making decisions that ultimately lead to the same sorts of reductions in children known to the child protection system as we have seen in Scotland.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: I just want to ask you a question around what happens when a minister holds two portfolios. Perhaps we can use you, Minister. You are Minister for Children and Minister for Disability. What happens when, for example, a care leaver who also has a disability – obviously they belong to a vulnerable cohort. Does that then mean, in terms of achieving these outcomes, that they will have better access to seamless NDIS support, say, into disability housing? What happens there when one minister is holding two pretty important portfolios that could assist in young leavers’ better outcomes?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Ministers would need to table plans that address both of their portfolios, and again, this is where we need to make sure that they work together. Notwithstanding that, taking your example of the NDIS, NDIS is a Commonwealth responsibility, so it complicates it in terms of answering. But just to be clear, and I think going to what really is the heart of your question, the obligation is to provide for plans that address both – in my case both the disability portfolio and the children portfolio – noting that they would –

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO: They would be separate, Minister? They would be separate plans or one –

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: There would be one minister tabling one plan that addresses disability and that addresses children. Obviously, for example, within children – and this already happens for me on a daily basis; there are three departments that work with me as Minister for Children, the Department of Health, the Department of Education and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing – my plan in relation to children would address issues that are cross-departmental. So it is tabled by a minister and addresses whatever portfolios the minister holds.

David ETTERSHANK: Good afternoon, Minister. Could I ask you a couple of questions, if I may, about subordination of SSSF responsibilities. Why are SSSF responsibilities expressly subordinated to ministers’ primary statutory functions under new sections 20H(3) and 20H(4)?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: It is effectively addressing the point that responsibilities under the plan cannot conflict with statutory responsibilities at law. To go to Ms Crozier’s questions earlier about Victoria Police, they would be a good example. Operationally, the police’s first and foremost obligations are their statutory functions, but there will also obviously be a role for the Minister for Police and the work of their corporate plan.

David ETTERSHANK: Can I just follow on from that then in terms of how the scheme can meaningfully shape big, important areas like housing, policing, justice and health decisions if ministers are not required to consider the SSSF expectations when exercising those primary responsibilities?

[The Legislative Council report is being published progressively.]