Mr GUNNER - 2011-05-04
Can you please update the House on the record child protection budget and what this government will deliver for Territory families?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, this is a good question. This government has made a significant investment in child protection since 2000-01. We found a minuscule budget when we came to government - you probably remember, you were the first Child Protection minister - and since then we have increased the budget many times.
This year, the budget for families and child protection is $182m. There is an extra $25.2m to continue with the investment we have made in child protection including $3.6m to reform the child protection intake system; $5m for increased payments for foster and kinship carers; $700 000 for the Children’s Commissioner; $2.4m to boost community education to establish hostel-based interagency teams; and money for 55 frontline staff.
However, the best way to assess what governments do about child protection services is to look at a similar period of time during a previous government and this one. We found a workforce of just over 100, now we have just under 500. We found a very small budget - which I will go to later - now we have $182m.
Yesterday, the member for Araluen made mention of a very significant report, State of Denial: The Neglect and Abuse of Indigenous Children in the Northern Territory. Last night I looked at this report and I would not have been very proud if I was in the CLP government when this report was commissioned. That report was actually taking into account …
Mrs Lambley: It came out in 2002 when you were in government.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr VATSKALIS: That report looked at child protection from 1990-91 to 2000-01. I quote from the report:
Over the period 1990 to 2000:
I quote from the Executive Summary:
The end of the Executive Summary of the report says - and is really embarrassing:
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, this is a good question. This government has made a significant investment in child protection since 2000-01. We found a minuscule budget when we came to government - you probably remember, you were the first Child Protection minister - and since then we have increased the budget many times.
This year, the budget for families and child protection is $182m. There is an extra $25.2m to continue with the investment we have made in child protection including $3.6m to reform the child protection intake system; $5m for increased payments for foster and kinship carers; $700 000 for the Children’s Commissioner; $2.4m to boost community education to establish hostel-based interagency teams; and money for 55 frontline staff.
However, the best way to assess what governments do about child protection services is to look at a similar period of time during a previous government and this one. We found a workforce of just over 100, now we have just under 500. We found a very small budget - which I will go to later - now we have $182m.
Yesterday, the member for Araluen made mention of a very significant report, State of Denial: The Neglect and Abuse of Indigenous Children in the Northern Territory. Last night I looked at this report and I would not have been very proud if I was in the CLP government when this report was commissioned. That report was actually taking into account …
Mrs Lambley: It came out in 2002 when you were in government.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr VATSKALIS: That report looked at child protection from 1990-91 to 2000-01. I quote from the report:
- The research found that the child protection system in the Northern Territory …
Over the period 1990 to 2000:
- … is not a system at all and that it is failing to meet its statutory obligations to Indigenous children under the Northern Territory Community Welfare Act of 1983.
I quote from the Executive Summary:
- The evidence from this research shows that the Northern Territory has the highest levels of unrecorded child abuse and neglect in Australia …
- The national rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from home and placed in out-of-home care …
… is consistently between four and five times higher than the rate for the Northern Territory.
The end of the Executive Summary of the report says - and is really embarrassing:
- Rather than address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children the Northern Territory child protection has in effect withdrawn from service provision abandoning the most impoverished children and families in Australia.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016