Child Safety Minister: Time to pick up pieces of Labor’s Child Safety mess

The state of the Child Safety System in Queensland is worse than I could have ever imagined, and now we are left to pick up the former government’s pieces, writes Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm.

Minister for Child Safety Amanda Camm. Picture: Steve Pohlner

The state of the Child Safety System in Queensland is worse than I could have ever imagined.

Over the past decade a billion-dollar industry has been created by the former Labor Government in the residential care sector with the number of young people in care growing exponentially, including 77 children under four living in residential care. This is unacceptable to me, as a mother and as a Queenslander.

These are some of the most vulnerable young people in this state, many are entering care following significant trauma, one in ten have suffered sexual abuse, almost half have been physically abused, emotional abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic and family violence are almost a given.

Companies have been established and are making millions in the trading of residential care placements.

This is taxpayer money that is meant to be spent to protect and provide for our most vulnerable children, not a market for profiteering.

The average cost of a child in Residential Care is about $350,000.

In some instances, it costs millions of dollars a year for just one young person to live in out-of-home care.

The traditional family based foster care model, which is run at a fraction of the cost and delivers better outcomes for children, was abandoned by the former Labor Government who treated foster carers with disdain.

The outcomes for a lot of these children is quite frankly, dire.

Many will attempt suicide while in care, others will self-harm and school will be extremely difficult with a large proportion of these children diagnosed with a disability while in care.

Some of these children will be drawn into a life of crime and become entrenched in the justice system, starting with sentences to detention centres, before ending up in prison as an adult.

As they age out of residential care, many will not be prepared for adult life and without family support will end up on public housing waitlists, they’ll require NDIS support and many will turn to welfare support from Centrelink.

We now also have a child safety frontline workforce that is struggling more than ever to meet demand. The former government knew the investigations were not commencing when they were supposed to, but they did nothing, and now we are left to pick up their pieces.

It is shocking that less than a third of child safety investigations are commenced within their allocated time frames, vulnerable children are being put at risk because of this.

This has not happened overnight. The Child Safety system in Queensland is in crisis and it was created under the former Labor Government following a decade of disregard for vulnerable children.

They created the market that increased costs well over a billion dollars, a market that allows for profit organisations to line their pockets on the backs of vulnerable children.

Labor failed in their responsibility and obligation to be the “parent”.

They created homes where kids with incredibly complicated backgrounds and significant trauma and needs are being placed with other children who are being exposed to traumatic events.

They had no regard for what this would do to communities, to the thousands of children who have been through the doors of those homes.

They had no regard for the trauma created and system failure that occurred under their watch.

That is why we have called this Commission of Inquiry. We need to understand how this happened, what decisions were made to get to this point and how we find our way out of this in a way that has vulnerable children front of mind and restores respect and responsible use of taxpayers’ dollars.

I expect former Ministers, director generals and child safety staff to be called to give evidence.

I expect accountability.

I expect current staff of all levels, peak bodies, stakeholders and, operators of residential care facilities both for profit and not for profit to give evidence.

And importantly I want to hear from the children to give voice to their experience, so that we may do better in the future, so they know we care.

There are some incredibly hardworking, loving, and caring people who work in this industry, or are foster and kinship carers who have been let down by the system that was created by the former government.

We owe it to them and to these vulnerable children to reform the system.

We must act. Vulnerable children will be prioritised by the Crisafulli Government.

Originally published as Child Safety Minister: Time to pick up pieces of Labor’s Child Safety mess