Anne Hollonds has called for the safety and wellbeing of children to be prioritised by government departments and agencies, at a speech in Canberra.
“Policies and service systems are failing to provide children and their families with the support they need, leading to more children coming into the child protection and youth justice systems,” Hollands told an audience at Parliament House on Monday.
The commissioner said youth detention facilities in Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory were cause for concern. Issues that had been exposed in the facilities represented an ‘ongoing crisis in youth justice’, she added, and showed government agencies were not prioritising the safety and wellbeing of children facing some of the most vulnerable circumstances.
“More children in Australia are experiencing poverty and homelessness. We need a co-ordinated national approach to address the underlying causes of harms to children, and we need a much greater sense of urgency,” she said.
Hollonds suggested federal, state and territory governments were responsible for not delivering on key recommendations from various inquiries and Royal Commissions over decades.
For example, Australia still has no national plan for child wellbeing, and there is no dedicated minister for children, unlike in many other developed nations.
“Nor do we have cross-portfolio leadership, like a taskforce, to address the system failures which are barriers to child safety and wellbeing,” the commissioner said.
Hollonds made her remarks as part of an Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) event marking National Child Protection Week (4-10 September). She observed children and young people, especially those living with poverty and disadvantage, had to contend with fragmented health education and social services systems that were not fit for purpose to meet their needs.
“Many of these families have told me directly about their frustrations at being unable to access basic support services,” Hollonds said.
“It’s not enough for us to care about our own children and grandchildren. We need to care about all children, and to create the conditions that keep children safe and well.”
Pointing to international evidence demonstrating community-based early interventions were the most effective way to protect and support children, the commissioner said Australia’s governments were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on approaches that were not working. This waste was occurring as more and more children entered the child protection and youth justice systems.
“A country that values children would be trying hard to shift investment upstream and earlier and to redesign the basic systems of support so that kids don’t fall in the gaps,” she said.
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