Counsel assisting the Yoorrook Justice Commission Fiona McLeod,SC,urged the council to consider First Nations people,“the many,many reports into this issue” and the testimonies that would be heard at the commission’s public hearings this week.
McLeod said the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care in Victoria was “heading in the wrong direction” and contributing to a high incarceration rate among First Nations people.
“It appears the current system is failing in its fundamental object of child protection,” she said. “It appears it is broken. It is fuelling a pipeline of shattered children straight to our health services and our criminal justice system.”
Indigenous children in Victoria are being removed from their families and put into out-of-home care – under the care of the government – at the highest rate in the country. Fifty-six per cent of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care in Victoria are placed with non-Aboriginal carers. More than 50 per cent are separated from their siblings.
At theswearing-in of his new ministry on Monday,Premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria was taking too many First Nations children away from their families.
“I want to make sure that we give much greater self-determination and much greater Aboriginal control of the child protection system when it comes to their kids than we’ve ever done,” he said.
This week,the Yoorrook commission is hearing how child protection policies and procedures fail First Nations people and why recommendations aimed at addressing Indigenous over-representation in the child protection system have not been roundly implemented.