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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Thursday, 12 February 2004) . . Page.. 316 ..

substantiated but a sexual abuse report would. This appraisal would then form the basis of departmental intervention.

If this occurs for a child in state care, the situation is similar. A child having been sexually abused and the report having been substantiated do not translate into fault on the part of Family Services. There is a huge difference between being assaulted by a caregiver when you are in care, which is a rare circumstance, and being sexually assaulted in the community at large. Whilst both are terrible circumstances, we can all see that a very different policy response and responsibility are attached to each of them. Unfortunately, these differences are not conveyed in the way these issues are debated.

These questions go to the heart of the matter the Assembly is currently questioning the government over. They involve the aspects the OCA is investigating and reporting on. They also fall within the current scope of the review by Commissioner Vardon. Yesterday I tabled a document from the OCA on the matters in question, and I would like to give members some guidance on reading this document.

In the document the OCA states:

Family Services may well receive, and respond to, a report regarding a child or young person in a completely appropriate manner, yet the child or young person may remain “unsafe”. That is, many children and young people are, and have been, “unsafe” for significant periods of time—sometimes years—and will remain so irrespective of what Family Services does.

This statement highlights the difficulties in the way information must be approached. Because the OCA regards someone who Family Services has had a report on as “unsafe” does not mean that Family Services has been negligent or at fault. Children sometimes abscond from foster care. In these circumstances, for example, the OCA would deem the child “unsafe”, even though there has been no fault on the part of Family Services.

In relation to the matters currently at hand, it is beneficial to explain the analysis of the figures by the OCA. Of the 52 children or young people about whom the OCA had questions, the OCA concluded, at the conclusion of the response by Family Services to reports on these children, that eight were “unsafe”. This is not to say that the reason for the children’s lack of safety had anything to do with the allegations which prompted the report to Family Services or that they had been abused in care. What it did mean was that at the time Family Services closed their initial files on these children, eight of them were still in unsafe circumstances.

This remains a concern for me, as minister, and the matter now forms part of the review by Commission Vardon. It must be stated, though, that the OCA concluded that seven of the eight children were being responded to appropriately by Family Services, while the other one now resided interstate. As I hope the Assembly can see, the issue is far more complex than the opposition would have us, or the community at large, believe.

To assist the opposition in getting a grasp of this important issue, I would like to offer them, and any crossbench members who are interested, a briefing on the workings of the child protection reporting and appraisal systems, so they can be better informed.

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