Page 3556 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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(3) calls on the Minister for Children, Youth and Families to:
(a) remind the independent expert who is undertaking the consultation process that the voices of children and young people must be included; and
(b) update the Assembly no later than the last sitting day in September 2019 regarding:
(i) how the voices of children and young people are being included in the consultation process;
(ii) the progress of this review and the consultation process, including when these are expected to conclude; and
(iii) what steps will follow, and when these are expected to conclude.
The opposition is grateful for the opportunity to bring this motion before the Assembly today. Nearly 2½ years ago, Mrs Kikkert moved a motion calling on the ACT government to recognise the importance of ensuring that decisions in the realm of child protection “be subject to external review both to ensure the quality of such decisions and to engender confidence in the system”.
Mrs Kikkert’s 2017 motion was informed in part by the 2004 Vardon report, which raised as one of its main issues the lack of external scrutiny of child protection decisions in the ACT. While this report did not specify a single mechanism for external review, it did note that the Children’s Court magistrate and most of the legal representatives with whom the review spoke had expressed support for an administrative tribunal supplemented by a judicial review process. The report went on to suggest that a commissioner for children and young people could have the power to convene such a tribunal. The ACT government’s response to the Vardon report’s suggestion was to create the commissioner position, but it then made sure that it lacked any power to provide the recommended external scrutiny.
As a consequence, by 2016 we had another report, the Glanfield inquiry, once again raising concerns about the lack of external merits review of care and protection decisions in the ACT. The Glanfield report suggested that the ACT was in some way out of step with other states and territories on this issue. This inquiry recommended that “a review be undertaken of what decisions made by CYPS should be subject to internal or external merits review” and that “the review should have regard to the position in other jurisdictions”.
This inquiry and its recommendation also informed the 2017 motion moved by Mrs Kikkert. At the time Minister Stephen-Smith tabled extensive amendments to the motion, specifically removing calls for the government to recognise the importance of external review as well as a statement noting that the ACT was out of step with other jurisdictions on this matter. Minister Stephen-Smith did, however, inform the Assembly that the recommended review had already begun. The opposition later learnt that the panel had commenced meeting in the previous December. That is almost three years ago, and 3½ years after the government accepted this recommendation.
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