The annual Report on Government Services shows all Australian states and territories are falling short on investigating child safety reports.
About 300,000 children were at the centre of safety notifications made to Australia’s welfare departments between 2020 and 2021.Only a third of those were fully investigated. And almost half of those were found to be legitimate child safety issues.Former kids in state care and child protection workers say the cracks in Australia’s child safety system have become craters, as children are forced to stay with sexual predators and subjected to broken bones.
Annabel says some of Australia’s most vulnerable children are left in “unsafe” situations because understaffed departments “don’t have the capacity to get to them”.
“Two young girls that I know of had over a period of two months talked about a family member of theirs who has been inappropriately touching them,” she says.
It took about three months for the department to stop contact between the girls and the family member.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the rate of removal is “disproportionate”.
They are 10 times more likely to end up in out-of-home or permanent care.
Neglect, which stems from poverty, is often the reason for removal.
Ms Liddle believes many families’ situations escalate to the point of removal because Australia’s child protection system is a reactive one, where prevention takes a back seat.
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