CHILD PROTECTION —
INVESTMENT
267. Mrs L.A. MUNDAY to the Minister for Child Protection:
I refer to the McGowan government's
ongoing commitment to keeping children safe and reducing the rate of children
entering care.
(1) Can the
minister outline to the house what this government's record investment
into our child protection system, including the additional $114 million
announced last month, will mean for services and frontline workers?
(2) Can the
minister advise the house how this investment will help protect vulnerable
children and support their families?
Ms S.F.
McGURK replied:
I thank the member for Dawesville
for her question and her interest in this area. I know she supports many carers
in her own electorate.
(1)–(2) I was very proud, as part of a pre-budget
announcement, to be able to announce $114 million of new funding for the
child protection portfolio and the child protection areas of work that we do in
this government. That comes on top of not only significant legislative reform
that the government has shepherded since coming to office, but also previous
investment in child protection and on some of the feeder issues that contribute to very vulnerable families in our
state which lead those families to need child protection services, in
issues like family and domestic violence; homelessness; mental health; and
alcohol and drug abuse.
The $114 million in new spending will
be concentrated in three different areas, one of which is around our commitment to keeping children safe. As part of
that $114 million, we are committed to providing 36 new FTE—that
is, 36 new case-carrying child protection workers will be delivered—as
well as extra money to support those workers.
It means that since coming to office, we have invested in more than 200 new
child protection workers before bringing in those figures—therefore,
200 plus 36 FTE. We have also announced a new care team in Midland. We really
are demonstrating a significant increase in the number of child protection
workers since coming to office.
The government is also interested in
making sure that families are kept safe. That is why we have invested significant money since coming to office into
helping vulnerable families. As part of that, this announcement includes $23.9 million for early intervention services—that
is additional money—in our early intervention family support
work. We are getting very good results in that early intervention work, so
that, coupled with supporting child protection workers, means we are seeing the
lowest number of children in care—the first reductions in the number of
children in care for over 25 years. I am very pleased to see that trend go down
for a number of months now, so that in the month of March there has been a continual
reduction in the number of children in care. In the 12 months prior to this, we
saw a 4.2 per cent reduction in the number of children in care. That is a reduction
of 224 children in a 12-month period, and for Aboriginal children in care there
has been a reduction of 3.1 per cent, or 96 children in care. That is a significant
reduction. We know that this is a target for
the new Closing the Gap ambitions. I am proud of the work that has been
done. Of course, I always qualify the figure in the reduction of children in
care by saying that we need to keep children
safe. Therefore, if there is a necessity to bring them into care and to keep
them in care, that is what we will do—but if we can keep them
safe, we would like to do that and keep them with their families. We are
keeping not only children and families safe, but also communities safe.
We
know that this is an issue particularly in some of our regional areas, so I was
very pleased to be with the Minister for Regional Development for the
announcement of $11.1 million to expand our very successful Target 120 program.
This is an early intervention program that works with young people aged 10 to
14 years. It works with not only young people who have numerous incidents and
interaction with police, but also their families. As a result of making sure
that those young people are the centre of our attention, working across
agencies and with those young people's families, on average half of
those young people have had no further
interactions with police since we came into office. That $11.1 million will
expand the program to another nine sites, taking the number total number
of sites to 20 across the state. The expansion will take place in Broome, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Derby, and
also outside the Kimberley to Karratha, Newman, Carnarvon, Mandurah and
Ellenbrook. I look forward to seeing the work done not only by the Department
of Communities' youth community workers, but also sometimes by
Aboriginal-controlled organisations doing
that work, because it is across-agency and it is evidence driven. There has
been not only a significant amount of resources being provided, but
those working in that program are seeing some real results in a reduction in
youth offending—really the Holy Grail of youth justice work—and
a reduction of children in care.
Before I sit down, I want to refer
briefly to the shallow understanding of the opposition on these issues. It likes to come in here when there is an article
in The West Australian on these issues and give us a bit of a serve, but I want to refer to a press release by
the member for Mining and Pastoral Region Hon Neil Thomson on our $114 million pre-budget announcement that
was published on 22 April. It really did show how little the opposition
understands these sorts of issues—in fact, so much so that I think
other members of the opposition realised and the press release was taken down
very quickly. He said that $114 million of extra funding was a cynical
distraction from the youth crisis facing regional areas. I do not know in what language $114 million is not a good investment,
but, clearly, I would not describe it as a cynical distraction. I would
say it was a real contribution of extra resources in evidence-based programs.
He also was surprised to hear that the funding appears to span the forward estimates!
That is right, Hon Neil Thomson: it does span the forward estimates; that is
the way the budget works. He also said that nearly 40 per cent of the new
allocated staff had already been allocated to Midland. That is not correct.
That was not in our press release; it has not been in any of our public
commentary. It is an addition to the new staff that we have allocated to
Midland, so he was wrong there. He also said that Perth is a long way from
Kununurra and all the other locations struggling with the consequences of child
neglect. That is right; Perth is a long way from Kununurra, but these new
resources will be spread across the state. In fact, Target 120 has a particular
focus on the Kimberley, and Kununurra already has Target 120.
The member also said that Department
of Communities staff are not available after hours in regional locations. Yes,
they are, member. Do not be fooled into thinking they are not—they are.
He said that this is not a FIFO response from Perth and we need to have in situ
workers. Yes, member, we do have child protection workers placed around the
state. The member should perhaps visit them some time. He also said with regard
to my press release —
''The Minister said that the
information will be available in a few weeks.
That
is right; that is because we announced it as a pre-budget announcement, and the
budget is traditionally handed down a few weeks after that.
On a number of fronts, the honourable
member was wrong. They had to take this press release down, and we have not
seen a response since.
The SPEAKER: The Leader of
the Liberal Party with the last question.