Minister steadfast over Territory's child protection report

NORTHERN Territory child protection minister Kon Vatskalis is still refusing to release a report that reveals the breakdown of social services.

NORTHERN Territory child protection minister Kon Vatskalis is still refusing to release a wide-ranging report that reveals the utter breakdown of social services in the Territory, insisting the report's publication would identify vulnerable children.

The NT government has gone into damage control after revelations that Aboriginal children in the care of the state were frequently abandoned to the care of relatives living in alcohol-ridden and violent households.

The Australian published at the weekend details of a report by Children's Commissioner Howard Bath, which found that background checks on carers were rarely carried out, ministers regularly failed to review the progress of cases, and police entreaties to social services to protect children sniffing petrol and engaging with paedophiles were repeatedly ignored.

Dr Bath,  who has stepped down from his role as Children's Commissioner to conduct a public inquiry that has been criticised as a sham, completed the report in November 2007 but its full contents were suppressed by the NT government.

The government tabled an executive summary and the recommendations of the report in parliament in late 2007, but held back the full detail that revealed extensive failings of the child protection system.

Mr Vatskalis issued a statement reinforcing the NT government's commitment to "completely review and re-assess the child protection system'' through the latest inquiry.

"My absolutely priority is to the welfare of all children,'' Mr Vatskalis said.

"I will make any necessary and vigorous changes to the system to ensure their safety and wellbeing is paramount.

"All the recommendations from the (2007 Bath Report) are being actioned,'' Mr Vatskalis said.

But the minister refused to release the Bath report in full despite its contents now being made public.

"The report was never kept hidden ... all the recommendations and executive summary were made available publicly,'' Mr Vatskalis said.

"However due to patient confidentiality considerations I am bound to not release any details that risk identifying children in care. The interests of those children must be first and foremost.''

Dr Bath said late last year that many of the recommendations contained in his report had not been implemented and warned that child protection issues in the Territory had "slipped off the radar'' in favour of concerns over Aboriginal public housing and economic development.

Dr Bath's report proves that the family tragedies unfolding under the watch of the department of Family and Community Services are not confined to two cases recently examined by NT Coroner Greg Cavanagh _ that of neglected 12-year-old Deborah Melville who died in foster care and that of a seven-week-old baby who starved to death in his mother's care.

Dr Bath's report found that full danger assessments, compiled after an initial home visit to a child in relative or foster care, were completed in only 20 per cent of audited cases.

Of 45 out-of-home care cases audited, only five children had received the required three-weekly visits by case workers. Eighty per cent of the out-of-home cases involved indigenous children, largely in the care of relatives whose backgrounds and living circumstances had rarely been adequately investigated.

Less than two-thirds of cases received review by the child protection minister as required by legislation, Dr Bath found.

And when a child had been in care for more than 12 months, only 2 per cent of cases received the 12-monthly panel review required by the Child Welfare Act.

The NT government says it has made significant changes to the child protection system since the review was announced, including making foster and relative carer assessments consistent.