Failure on child welfare

State ‘worst in the country’

TASMANIA’S poor performance at handling child welfare notifications compared with other states showed child safety was still not a priority for the government, opposition parties say.

The Productivity Commission’s annual Report on Government Services (RoGS) released on Wednesday found that Tasmania’s youth justice system is marked by high rates of assault, self-harm and rising levels of recidivism. Tasmania is also the state slowest at launching and completing child protection investigations.

Labor’s child safety and youth affairs spokesman Josh Willie said the results were “alarming”.

“It’s not acceptable to have such poor response times – the worst in the country,” he said.

“These are appalling statistics and the government should be condemned.

“They have failed to invest in response times when it comes to child safety services and there are too many children with welfare concerns being left in this situation.

“This is not a priority area for this government, we have seen a deterioration over seven years of this government.”

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the first round of RoGS reporting – there are three more to come over the next week – had highlighted a series of failures by the state government. “While the Gutwein government is cutting land tax for Tasmanians fortunate enough to own a second property, it is short-changing housing supply and turning homeless people away in increasing numbers,” she said.

“On an average day in Tasmania, 35 homeless people who ask for help are turned away.

“In a deepening housing and homelessness crisis, the Gutwein government was responsible for just 13 additional public housing homes last year. Tasmania also has the lowest expenditure for each public housing dwelling of any State or Territory.

“Failures and underfunding in the child safety system are possibly the most damning aspect of this year’s RoGS.

“Tasmania is the worst performer of any state or territory in responding to child safety notifications, with almost three quarters of child safety investigations taking more than three months to complete.”

Premier Peter Gutwein said the government was considering the findings.

“I welcome that report,” he said. “I think it’s important that benchmarking is provided in terms of our performance against other states.”