First Nations child protection
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (12:36): (715) My question is for Minister Blandthorn. The Yoorrook Justice Commission made a series of recommendations to urgently reform Victoria’s child protection system to address the over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. Recommendation 12 recommends that an Aboriginal legal service be notified when the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing receives a substantiated report in relation to an Aboriginal child or unborn child. This ensures that parents are offered appropriate legal support. However, First Nations parents are increasingly being forced by the department to enter so-called voluntary agreements to place their children in out-of-home care and not to involve lawyers on the basis that this would complicate matters. This avoids any scrutiny and leaves parents vulnerable to having their children removed from their care for indefinite periods without independent court oversight. So I ask the minister: consistent with the Yoorrook recommendation, will the government establish a notification system to ensure Aboriginal legal services are informed of the department’s receipt of a report relating to an Aboriginal child or unborn child?
Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:37): I thank Mr Ettershank for his question and indeed for his advocacy and the constructive way in which he seeks to work with the government on matters relating to the protection of children in care. Before I go specifically to recommendations 11 and 12 I just want to call out the element in your preamble, Mr Ettershank, that went to the assertion that the department might be in any way forcing non-voluntary agreements. That would be a very serious concern that I know I and I am sure the department would be horrified about. If there are examples of such, I would request that they be provided to us outside the chamber for investigation. Certainly it would be the view of the department that any agreements are voluntary and that in making voluntary agreements everyone’s fundamental rights to any representation would be critical. But certainly only the court can force agreements, and again in such circumstances representation is a critical element of that. So if there are any suggestions that something to the contrary has happened, the department I am sure would gratefully receive those.
In relation to Yoorrook for Justice recommendations 11 and 12, these recommendations go to the process for supporting pregnant women with an Aboriginal child, including through consent-based child protection notification schemes. The government committed to supporting both of those recommendations in principle, and work is underway to consider how we further progress that work. It is ongoing, and in relation to progressing the scope of recommendations 11 and 12, unborn reports are the initial priority in that. We are really keen to do that immediate work. The first step is to confirm the scope and what a pilot might look like for a holistic child protection notification scheme for unborn reports. To that end DFFH has commenced this policy scoping work in partnership with Aboriginal legal services, Aboriginal community controlled organisations delivering children and family services, the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and of course the Department of Justice and Community Safety and the Department of Health as well.
The aim of a pilot for a new response model would be of course to provide that holistic and intensive support, those wraparound services, including legal advice when and where it is needed, for women who are pregnant with an Aboriginal child. It is intended that this new response model would increase engagement with all of those wraparound services by mothers pregnant with Aboriginal children, with a view to reducing the number of unborn reports which lead to further intervention by child protection. Indeed I would call out that some of the examples of where this has happened really well already have been at some of the ACCOs. Bendigo would be a really good example of where they are leading this work and the outcomes are truly impressive.
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (12:41): In 2014 the former Liberal government amended the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 to reduce the amount of time children spend in out-of-home care to 12 or 24 months before they are permanently removed from their family. This responded to concerns about children being moved between multiple out-of-home arrangements over an extended period. However, poverty, social marginalisation and the long waitlist for culturally appropriate support mean that many Aboriginal people struggle to meet the strict time limits for family reunification. Recommendation 25 of the Yoorrook Justice Commission was that the act be amended to allow the Children’s Court of Victoria discretion to extend the timeframe of a family reunification order if it benefits the child, which the government again supported in principle. I ask: will the minister amend the Children, Youth and Families Act to undo the continuing damage caused by the one-size-fits-all approach of the current time-limited family reunification orders?
Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:42): Thank you, Mr Ettershank, for your supplementary question. Indeed I acknowledge that there has been a lot of interest in this matter. Certainly given that the then government of the day introduced this bill in 2014 and I was subsequently elected in 2014, this is a matter that has exercised me since that time because I completely agree with where you are coming from. My speech on the subsequent bill in 2015 shows that, as does my evidence at the Yoorrook Justice Commission, where I committed to reviewing this legislation and in particular what equates to a blunt provision and a hard deadline, if you like, for family reunification and the negative impact that it can have particularly on mothers but on all parents when we do not provide families with enough time to get the supports and the services that they need to have a successful reunification of their family. I committed at Yoorrook to look into this. It is something that we have conducted a consultation on since that time and continue to work on.