Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Second Reading
3 March 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
I rise to make a contribution to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025, which seeks to implement the supporting stable and strong families scheme. The bill aims to create a whole-of-government response to enhance service access and support earlier intervention for children, young people and families at risk of or involved with child protection, care services and family services systems.
Under the scheme, all ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police will have responsibilities for the supporting stable and strong families group, which includes that cohort who are or have been engaged with or are at risk of entering the child protection system. A key aspect of the scheme will be the development and implementation by those entities of a supporting stable and strong families plan.
The plan will be tabled in Parliament biannually and at the end of two years the relevant ministers will report on the outcomes of the plan.
This scheme is based on the Scottish model of corporate parenting, as we have heard, which was introduced in the UK in 2014. I will talk a bit more about that in a moment. This bill is supposed to complement the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025, which we will be debating later this day.
While we are supportive of the stability bill, which represents a positive move forward in the child protection space, we have some misgivings about this bill. The idea of a holistic whole-of-government approach to child protection is a laudable ambition. We are entirely supportive of the objectives of the bill. It is just that it does not do much in practical terms. In his second-reading speech, Minister Carroll stated:
“The Bill gives practical effect to this duty by introducing responsibilities across government, mandating integrated planning and service delivery across government areas such as housing, health, education, and justice.”
That sounds great. He goes on to say:
“The scheme will provide the framework for government to work together, to identify gaps and challenges, and to deliver better services to children and families, and decision makers will be held to account for making this happen.”
The problem is we have already seen any number of frameworks legislated that have made no real difference to the lives of the people that they are intended to help.
A very important and pertinent example is the Framework to Reduce Criminalisation of Young People in Residential Care, which was launched in February 2022 and co-signed by the departments of health and human services and justice and community safety, and Victoria Police. As the name suggests, it is aimed at reducing the number of young people in residential care who end up being criminalised for behaviour that does not need a law and order response.
I have asked the Minister for Children about the rollout of this framework on a few occasions and was indeed once commended on the constructive way I phrased a question, which was pleasing. But despite the enlistment of various departments and Victoria Police in implementing the framework, it has not really made much of a difference. Nothing much has changed.
VALS, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, continue to see children who are policed and charged due to their behaviour in residential care being criminalised, and they suggest that this might be because the framework is a long-term planning document rather than a policy that establishes standards for police and care providers to actually meet.
I fear we are seeing the same thing with this scheme. It is all very broad and very vague. There are no real actionable responsibilities and there is no accountability other than the requirement to table plans and reviews in Parliament, and there are certainly no resources to support it.
The scheme is not necessarily harmful, but it definitely has the potential to draw resources away from other more useful practical initiatives. Having said that, some stakeholders we have spoken to do fear it may do more harm than good. VALS has stated:
‘In our view, what is being proposed is unlikely to lead to substantial reforms to the child protection system, nor improvements in how the state responds to the needs of Aboriginal children and families.
Our main concern is what is being proposed in the Bill distracts from transformational, community-led reform that is driven by Aboriginal people and communities.’
VALS have real concerns that if families are not seen to be engaging with the programs, it will be used against them and they will be further disadvantaged, and God knows they have seen that often enough. There are no details on how the scheme will operate, nor how the principles will influence decision-making at the individual specific case level, nor how it will compel the various agencies to actually work together.
What is needed is some genuine and long overdue investment in the sorts of services and early intervention that do make a difference in keeping families stable and strong: housing, health and family violence services. The bill does not do anything to address these major service gaps. Without investment and accountability it risks being just another tick-the-box exercise.
There were similar concerns raised about the effectiveness of the Scottish corporate parenting model on which this bill is based. The UK all-party parliamentary group inquiry into the scheme in 2023 acknowledged that:
‘… under-resourcing and inconsistent implementation have limited corporate parenting full potential.’
And it acknowledged that:
‘… the current corporate parenting principles are too broad and lack enforceable standards.’
The inquiry recommended that the framework be amended to be more action-focused and specific, ensuring that organisations are held accountable for tangible outcomes. Stakeholders such as VALS, Djirra and the Federation of Community Legal Centres were also alarmed by the lack of consultation around the development of this bill. This bill apparently came out of nowhere with the barest minimum consultation.
At the end of the day, do we really need to import a scheme from overseas, particularly one with questionable effectiveness? We have already had any number of inquiries and reports that deliver a comprehensive blueprint for reforming the child protection system, including the Yoorrook for Justice report and successive inquiries by the Commission for Children and Young People. The Greens will be moving amendments to try to strengthen compliance and reporting, which we will be supporting and which we commend to the house.
Legalise Cannabis Victoria will be supporting this bill. We sincerely hope this scheme will be resourced and implemented in good faith and that it will improve the outcomes of children and families caught up in the child protection system. At the very least we hope it will not distract the government from implementing meaningful reforms that demonstrably will.
[Amended Bill passed without dissent]
