Tuesday, 29 October 2024

Child protection

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (14:09): My question is to the Premier. In the last four years the Victorian government has received 5400 incident reports of physical, sexual, psychological and financial abuse within the family services system. Abuse incident reports have increased over the last two years. What conclusions can Victorians come to other than that Labor has utterly and comprehensively failed to properly run Victoria’s family services system?

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:10): I absolutely reject the proposition that was put at the end of that question from the member for South-West Coast, and I reject it because I am going to support those child protection workers who are supporting and working with vulnerable Victorians. I would hope that is something that we could display a sense of unity on in this place, because this is something that is –

Members interjecting.

Jacinta ALLAN: These are vulnerable little Victorians we are talking about, and as I said in my earlier answer, the safety and wellbeing of children are absolutely at the centre of everything we do as a government. Those child protection workers deserve our support, which is why, as I mentioned earlier, we have provided additional funding. But it also goes beyond additional funding. Yes, additional funding has resulted in more child protection workers than we have ever had before in our system, but it also goes to looking at the broader family services system, looking at what more we can do to not just strengthen the supports around the child in care but also support the family environment and, if at times it needs be, the broader environment in which that child is placed.

That is why I also mentioned the therapeutic services that we will be providing to every child in residential care. It is also why we have done the work we have done through legislative change that has passed through the Parliament to change the system when it comes to supporting Aboriginal children in care, because we know that particularly this group of kids are removed from their parents at a higher rate than the rest of the population. Too many little Aboriginal babies are taken away from their mum at birth. That is why, alongside the broader reform work that the Minister for Children is undertaking, we are also changing and working with Aboriginal-controlled organisations to support the mother, the family and the community to take care of those little kids. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that it is working, because Victoria has the highest rate of Aboriginal children placed in kinship care in this country because of these changes.

These communities and these vulnerable Victorians deserve our support and our respect. They deserve to be listened to, and that is what we will continue to do to support these vulnerable Victorians, their families and particularly children.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (14:13): In May the commissioner for children and young people revealed that in just one year there were reports of 85 children living in residential care being victims of child prostitution. Some children were as young as 11. Does the Premier guarantee that today there are no children in the family services system being prostituted?

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:14): In answering the question from the member for South-West Coast, I want to draw the member’s attention to the additional investments that we provided last year that specifically included additional new investment to tackle child sex exploitation, recognising that the important point about this investment is not, again, just the investment itself. It recognises that this is a challenge and how we need to better support and strengthen supports for vulnerable young Victorians.

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, I asked: today what is being done to make sure no child is being prostituted?

The SPEAKER: Order! A point of order is not an opportunity to repeat the question.

Mary-Anne Thomas: On the point of order, Speaker, there is no point of order. The Premier was being entirely relevant to the question. I ask that you ask members on the other side to allow the Premier to address this very serious issue in silence.

The SPEAKER: It is a very emotive subject the house is talking about in question time today, and I ask all members to be respectful of members on their feet. The Premier was being relevant to the question. I cannot tell the Premier how to answer the question, but she was being relevant.

Jacinta ALLAN: As I was saying, not only is the additional investment important in terms of providing additional support, particularly supporting the work between the department and Victoria Police, who do a huge amount of work in this area; it is also about recognising that this is a most serious challenge within our system that needs the attention that it is getting.