Tuesday, 21 June 2022

Child protection

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (19:09): (1992) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Child Protection. It has in fact been 250 days today since the Children, Youth and Families (Child Protection) Bill 2021 was debated in the other place, and it was made plain in the other place on day one that the opposition wholeheartedly supports this important bill. The government introduced this bill because the opposition had been advocating for years for a home stretch, for extended care to make sure that kids in our care system could have care beyond the age of 18—that artificial cut-off point—but also to seek to ensure that the many vulnerable Indigenous kids in our care system could have the support that they need in particular through shifting responsibility from the government, which of course has done nothing but debase our child protection system over 18 of the last 22 years, to our fantastic Indigenous community sector organisations. I was so thrilled to support that piece of legislation because of course a further element of it is to enable members of our community sector organisations to attend with child protection workers in an effort to drive down the number of unallocated cases where children who are known to have experienced dreadful trauma have no support. And yet because Dr Ratnam, who is present in the chamber, wanted to amend that bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility, the government has determined not to bring it back. It sits on the notice paper today.

It is a bill that has bipartisan support. It is a bill that so many members of the government have said is necessary. Members of the government have said that this bill is necessary to seek to ensure that Indigenous kids get the support that they need, to drive down unallocated case numbers and more broadly to provide care and support to young people leaving care. But because it is an election year, and because the last thing that the government wants to be doing is to be talking about the youth affairs portfolio and in particular about thorny matters when it comes to youth justice, it just sits and languishes on the notice paper. Well, we have noticed. It has been 250 days. That bill must come back. I implore the government, please. We will vote for it. On this side of the house every single member of the Liberal and National team will vote for it. Dr Ratnam and Mr Hayes are indicating that they will vote for this important bill. The action that I seek is for the minister to work with his upper house colleagues to bring back that bill in whatever form so that we together can seek to provide a better future for vulnerable Victorian kids.