Page 2365 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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These problems are exacerbated by broader systemic deficiencies within the Care and Protection Service.
It has been no secret that, in this area of government, we have not been successfully looking after our most vulnerable Canberrans for a long time. The hard-working and dedicated front-line staff within Care and Protection Services continue to battle against a system that failed to support them, despite their best efforts. And despite the minister’s constant reassurances that things will improve, that was not the case.
In a report released last year on care and protection by the ACT Auditor-General it became known that the government could not tell you on any given day where the children that were in care were. Who would have thought that would be too much to ask for?
Late last year we had the release of the ACT Children and Young People Death Review Committee report, and the statistics there showed that 20 per cent of children that died in the ACT over the five-year period examined were either known to Care and Protection Services or one of their siblings was—that is, one in five children who died were known to Care and Protection. We had some deaths that could conceivably have been avoided.
This year we had the report on government services released in January. This report showed the ACT government is continuing to allow the territory’s child protection services to flounder. In comparison to other jurisdictions, the ACT spends well below the national average on the sector. On a per capita basis the ACT spends only $551 per child compared with the national average of $739. We spend the lowest on our care and protection services, and it shows.
This budget shows that even after all those reports, after all the proof that the operations of this department need to be improved, after all the reports that show our children are being let down, this is still not seen as a priority by this government. We are happy to throw $600 million at a light rail system, we are happy to put $1.3 billion into the budget without really explaining how it is going to be spent but we are not even going to find enough of a funding increase for Care and Protection Services to cover CPI. This government wants to continue to have a system which works against the best efforts of the hard-working, front-line staff and does not provide true support for the children who need it.
There is no consistency here. There are situations where one child may be given back to a mother but not another, situations where children are put into foster care and the father has no knowledge of it, times when children who are in danger are forced to go back to parents when evidence indicates it is not safe. There is case after case of the care and protection system being inconsistent and failing, and we really need to make this a priority of our government.
We spend less in this area not because we are more efficient but because we are delivering poorer outcomes. We are throwing away money on things like light rail but when it comes to Care and Protection Services, with our most vulnerable people, we seem to have short arms and long pockets.
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