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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 20 ..

that the provision of government care for children right across Australia is fraught with challenges. It is clear that child protection systems nationally are under stress.

In this territory, it is clear that the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services has failed to comply with a key part of its legislative brief. Essential sections of the Children and Young People Act 1999 have not been complied with. It is now apparent, through this government’s inquiry, that this failure to comply stretches from the enactment of the act in early 2000 under the previous government to my current term as minister responsible for this portfolio. It is clear, particularly in regard to issues of reporting and accountability, that the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services has failed to comply with the will of the Assembly in adhering to clear legislative provisions that aim to ensure our system of child protection is efficient and responsive to the needs of children at risk.

On 11 December the chief executive of the department informed me that the department had failed to meet its statutory obligations. In a short brief that was provided to me on that day the department outlined its failure, under section 162 (2) of the Children and Young People Act, to provide the Office of the Community Advocate with copies of reports regarding allegations of abuse of children in the care of the department made under that act. That admission of non-compliance on the part of the department prompted immediate action on my part.

In a letter to the Chief Minister that same day I alerted him to the failure by the department, my immediate concerns for the safety of children in the care of the territory and the need for immediate steps to be taken to guarantee the safety of the children concerned and to ensure that legislative compliance was guaranteed. At that stage I also sought further information from the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services. I sought a status report on children in the care of the chief executive and further information about the allegations of abuse in care reports.

The subsequent advice that was provided to me on 12 January 2004 resulted in the government’s four-point plan that was announced on 15 January. That plan was directed towards ensuring that the interests of children in the care of the territory were properly protected. As part of the four-point plan, an audit team of senior child protection workers was established to investigate immediately the safety status of all children in care. That was complemented by an injection of $1.8 million into the area to provide additional resources to meet the day-to-day demands of ensuring child safety and to meet the increased costs associated with increases in substitute care demands.

The government also restructured the administrative functions of Family Services to separate child protection from disaster recovery and family support within the department. That was done to ensure a greater organisational focus on child protection. The government also instigated an independent review into the child protection system—a review headed by Commissioner Cheryl Vardon. Ms Vardon is being assisted by two specialists in the field of child safety, Professor Kim Oates of Westmead Children’s Hospital and Ms Gwenn Murray, who assisted the inquiry in Queensland.

The government has every confidence that that review will act with full independence and probity in investigating all the issues associated with the role of the government in child protection and especially in the area of legislative compliance. The Children and

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