16/10/2021
Last week Child Protection Amendment Bill was tabled by the Government and quickly passed through the Victorian lower house which, amongst some positive and welcome initiatives, also contains provisions that drastically undermine the rights and protections for children and parents contained within the current system. These proposed changes include:
1). Removing bail justices and extending the timeframes that Child Protection has to file any material in Court for two "working days", which in practice means that it could be up to 6 days following the apprehension of a child (currently CP are required to present their case either within 24 hours either before a bail justice or the Court); This means that parents and children have no recourse to contest the removal of the child for a significant period and can lead to unjust, unwarranted or unlawful removals going unchecked for extended period of time;
2). Removing the discretion of the Court contrary to the well-established best interests principles to be able to place a child in the care of their parent in circumstances where they live with a suitable person and their care of the child is supervised/monitored by that person to ensure the child's safety/wellbeing. In practice this will require the Court to remove children from the legal custody of victim/survivors of family violence who remain at risk from the perpetrator of the violence, regardless of whether the Court were of the view that the risk posed to the child could be mitigated with conditions. The result is that children in such circumstances will be fast-tracked to be permanently removed from their parent's care given the strict legislative timeframes under the Act.
3). Including a provision that potentially extends the coverage of the Act to every family in the State being open to a finding that their child is in need of protection.
The Bill is due for debate in the Legislative Assembly in the week commencing 26/10. I urge those that share these concerns to contact your local member and share among your networks.
For a more detailed analysis, please see the attached briefing paper.
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I form part of the executive of the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) Child and Youth Issues committee, am an accredited specialist in the area of children’s law, and have represented thousands of families in the jurisdiction for over 15 years. I was part of the “cabinet in confidence” consultat...
