Tuesday, 30 August 2022

National Child Protection Week

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (13:11): Next week is a very big week. It is my wife’s birthday on Tuesday, and that turns into a weeklong celebration. But even more importantly it is National Child Protection Week, so perhaps next week we as a community could have a focus on an area that I think a lot of Victorians understandably would rather not focus on, certainly not when the outcomes that we see are as bad as they are.

I have been talking in this place recently in particular about dreadful outcomes for young Indigenous people in our state, so it will be fantastic to join numerous Indigenous organisations next week at a range of activities that they are doing to mark National Child Protection Week. One in 10 young Indigenous Victorians is in the care of the state today. One in nine Indigenous babies in Victoria today is removed from their mother. These are the worst statistics in the country, but they are not just statistics. Every one of these young people is somebody who has the potential to go forward in our state and to make a huge contribution, but their ability to do so is being robbed at the moment by failures of the Andrews Labor government.

It was interesting to hear my friend—he has just left the chamber—Mr Gepp muttering about privatisation a little earlier when Ms Lovell was talking about health services. The ALP loves a privatisation scare. Well, open up some room for a further privatisation scare. In child protection the government is failing so shockingly to look after Indigenous children that I agree with Aunty Muriel Bamblett that we should empower Indigenous-led organisations to do far more, and that is something I will be talking about in the lead-up into the election, welcoming a privatisation scare by those opposite and their friends in the CPSU.