Thursday, 15 August 2024

Child protection

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:04): (622) My question is again to the Minister for Children. Minister, PAEC heard that there were 215 incident reports of sexual abuse of children and young people in residential care as of May this year. The commissioner for children and young people has said that:

… I continue to see children who are repeatedly missing from placement and victimised through sexual exploitation, with inconsistent and ineffective responses …

In response, your department said that:

… young people placed in residential care are supervised by carers 24 hours a day, seven days a week …

Minister, what advice have you received regarding the inconsistent and ineffective responses the commissioner has referred to?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:05): Thank you, Ms Crozier, for your question. Again, this goes to an issue we have discussed in this place a number of times in relation to the protection of children in out-of-home care, and as we have said, we are talking about many of the most vulnerable children in Victoria. The conditions that in the first place land these children so often in out-of-home care and particularly in residential care are also the same conditions that often place them at heightened risk of exploitation of all kinds, including sexual exploitation, and this is a responsibility that both I as minister and the community service organisation partners that we have that partner with us in the delivery of residential care take extremely seriously.

The department is working in collaboration with Victoria Police to protect those vulnerable children from exploitation, including sexual exploitation, and we have also acknowledged in the past that we need to do more in relation to this, which is why we were very pleased that in the 2023–24 state budget we built on previous actions by providing funding for additional sexual exploitation practice leads, who are central to the department’s efforts in order to both identify and prevent sexual exploitation and to provide coverage to all areas across the state. This is funding that was provided in the 2023–24 state budget and which is being rolled out with the introduction of sexual exploitation leads in both the metropolitan and rural after-hours services in order to identify and prevent sexual exploitation outside of business hours, at night and over the weekend. The 2023–24 state budget investment enabled the department to increase the number of sexual exploitation practice leads from 11 to 19. This is obviously a very significant increase.

I was pleased to recently meet with some of those recruits at their training. I also met with the sexual exploitation practice lead in the south division – I think it was about the same week as PAEC, actually – and got to hear firsthand from her about her important work and the way in which that is working with other divisions as well, the way in which it is ensuring that we have additional capacity and capability to better enable detection and to share intelligence on sexual exploitation. It is important to note that when we have more staff dedicated to this task, we get better at finding the abhorrent conduct. This was a really important achievement of that previous budget allocation and one which I know that the commissioner for children and young people was most pleased by and was calling for at that time. It is also for this reason that we made that investment in the last budget in order to ensure that we are finding the people responsible for such exploitation and that we are holding them to account. Sexual exploitation is a very serious crime. It is a crime that is so often targeted at those who are at their most vulnerable, and we are dedicated to tracking them down.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:08): Minister, the commissioner also said that any progress made towards protecting the nearly 500 children in residential care could not paper over the impacts of any shortcomings in out-of-home care. You have referred to some of the things that the government is doing, but I would also like to ask: what is the government doing in response to the commissioner’s repeated calls for child protection and care providers to work with police to investigate perpetrators and stop the abuse of children in out-of-home care?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:08): I thank Ms Crozier, and I am happy to repeat some of my earlier remarks. But as I have indicated, I have met with the police minister on this issue both in relation to high-risk youth and in relation to those who are at risk of exploitation, including sexual exploitation. This is a conversation that I have had with the Minister for Police. It is a conversation that is being had across departments. The work that I spoke to in my answer to the substantive question, in the way in which I have outlined all of the additional resources and capacity we are building into the fight against sexual exploitation of children, is happening across the system, and we are very much dedicated to ensuring that that work achieves its goal.