Turner Judy: General Debate 
Turner Judy: General Debate 
[Volume:633;Page:4793] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 When a Government agency has wide-ranging statutory powers that can be applied in situations requiring less evidence than would be necessary to secure a conviction in a court of law it is absolutely essential that that agency is required to be fully transparent about the actions it takes. Child Youth and Family is our legally empowered child protection agency that is able to remove children from their parents’ legal care and place them in the care of others when it believes it is in the children’s best interests. 
In the last few weeks United Future has been calling on this Government to ensure that child protection in this country occurs in an environment that reflects international standards of best practice. We are asking the Government to set up an independent Child Youth and Family complaints authority that is similar to the independent Police Complaints Authority. Our intention is not to create a culture of shame and blame within Child Youth and Family; in fact it is quite the opposite. Part of any credible social work environment must include the opportunity for quality assurance activities to take place. 
No one envies the front-line caseworkers at Child Youth and Family. They deal with what must be some of the most stressful casework and they have to make some very tough calls in the interests of children’s safety and well-being. The nature of Child Youth and Family interventions is that removing a child is only the first in a series of steps that often include family group conferences which decide access arrangements and placement decisions. There are court appearances psychological assessments and the like—all with huge implications for the child his or her parents siblings extended family foster parents and Child Youth and Family staff themselves. Everybody has a lot invested in the outcome. 
Currently the Children’s Commissioner has the legislative mandate to investigate the decisions and actions of Child Youth and Family as they pertain to the ongoing safety and well-being of any child or children. This is important work and the department could well do with some additional resources to meet this obligation. However the Children’s Commissioner does not investigate on behalf of or in the interests of adults affected by the decisions and the actions of Child Youth and Family. In fact parents grandparents those adults who are making a notification and any other adult involved have nowhere to go if they want to complain about the way they have been treated. 
To give some perspective the Police Complaints Authority costs about $2 million a year has seven staff and handles about 2500 complaints a year of which about 13 percent are upheld either fully or partially. That represents an average of 343 cases. The rest of them either do not hold up under scrutiny are dropped or are settled through mediation processes. 
Like most MPs I have a huge pile of letters emails and documents sent to me by both family members who believe they have been unfairly treated by Child Youth and Family and those who have made notifications to the service and have been unhappy with the response they received. I am not convinced that every case in my filing cabinet would stand up to independent examination. The fact that possibly 13 percent of cases could represent a genuine complaint is a cause for concern and that those people have no way of having their concerns looked at in a timely way is completely unacceptable. Recent questions to the Minister in charge of Child Youth and Family show that the Ministry of Social Development currently does not even keep a database of complaints. It does not even know or record how many complaints have been received by the department. 
Some of the families who have contacted me are afraid to complain in case they make their case management situation worse. Those fears may be irrational but with no data kept and nowhere else for them to turn for help it is difficult for me as a member of this House to offer those people any reassurance. 
It is essential that public confidence in our child protection services is high. I think we could do better and having an independent body would be a great place to start. I invite the Minister who is responsible for Child Youth and Family and her staff members—who indicated when I questioned them at the financial review of the service that they were aware they could be doing better in that regard—to make haste in making some very important decisions. If we take the information around the Police Complaints Authority as an example we will realise that it is not a costly exercise.