The New South Wales government has announced a new “restoration taskforce” to oversee efforts to return as many Aboriginal children to their families from the child protection system as is safe.
In a significant policy shift from previous governments, the minister for families and communities, Kate Washington, said the “shocking proportion” of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care can be reduced by working in partnership with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations.
The taskforce will “start changing the trajectory of outcomes for Aboriginal children” by giving community-controlled organisations greater say over how Aboriginal children are dealt with by the system, Washington said.
Almost half (46%) of the 14,000 children in out-of-home care in NSW are Aboriginal.
“Status quo is not an option,” Washington said.
The taskforce was announced on Tuesday after the first meeting of the ministerial Aboriginal partnership (Map) group – Aboriginal stakeholders, leaders and community representatives appointed to advise the government on how to redesign the system.
Washington said she was committed to expanding restoration work to “ensure every Aboriginal child that can be safely returned to their family or community, is returned” by working more closely with community-controlled organisations.
The move has long been called for by the sector.
In 2018, a damning independent report found the NSW child protection system was “ineffective and unsustainable” and its escalating costs were “crisis-driven”. The report, by the former senior public servant David Tune, estimated the NSW government spent $1.86bn on programs that were poorly evaluated and focused on removals rather than early intervention.
In 2019 the “Family is Culture” report by University of NSW professor Megan Davis found that NSW child protection workers regularly gave “misleading” evidence to the children’s court and there was “widespread non-compliance” with law and policy. Family and community services staff routinely ignored the requirement to consult regularly with Aboriginal families and communities and routinely chose removal over other less intrusive options, the report said.
In 2020 NSW created a new deputy children’s guardian for Aboriginal children and young people and set up an “Aboriginal knowledge circle” to provide independent advice to the minister for families, communities and disability services.
But by 2021 it was criticised for being slow to respond to the bigger reforms Davis recommended.
In 2023 the new Minns Labor government oversaw amendments to the Care Act that required caseworkers to present evidence to the children’s court that “active efforts” were being taken to keep families together when it is safe to do so.
Washington says these new measures were in line with the federal government’s Closing the Gap commitments.
The federal government on Tuesday announced it would appoint a national Aboriginal children’s commissioner, a move described by the Coalition of Peaks’ Catherine Liddle as a “groundbreaking moment”.
An interim commissioner will begin work on 1 July to consult widely on the powers and functions of the role.
“The NSW government is committed to reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the child protection system, in partnership with Aboriginal leaders, stakeholders and communities,” Washington said.
The NSW peak body for Aboriginal children and communities, AbSec, said the partnership was “a heavy responsibility”.
“We are thrilled to be working hand-in-hand with the minister on this landmark reform partnership. It is gratifying to see that the government has recognised that Aboriginal people and [community-controlled organisations] know what their families and communities need,” said John Leha, the AbSec CEO and Map group co-chair.
“We need to make sure we do not simply create more of the same. We need to seize this opportunity to move further and faster away from the paternalistic and authoritarian history of the child protection system, to finally put Aboriginal people in control of our own destiny. Based on all the signs so far, I’m confident we will be able to.”
The inaugural meeting followed a bruising week in NSW child protection, with reports that two Aboriginal teenagers have been stranded in the UK with foster carers without passports since 2020, and claims that a faith-based out-of-home care service have been refusing to assess the aunt of an Aboriginal baby as a possible carer because she was in a same-sex relationship.
