I too rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Supporting Stable and Strong Families) Bill 2025. This is a really important bill. We talk about some really important topics here in this place. This bill is about improving outcomes for young Victorians, especially children at risk and their families, so this could not be a more important topic for us to speak about this afternoon. But it is no surprise to me that those opposite – and it is lovely to follow the member for Shepparton – have pretty much run out of speakers, and they ran out of speakers some time ago. Despite coming to this place and putting on a big show and dance about how they really care about child protection and how they have a lot to say about it, the room is empty on the other side of this chamber, and I do wonder if they will have any other speakers this afternoon to stand to speak on this really important bill.

The main goal of this bill is to introduce a new whole-of-government approach to supporting child wellbeing and safety through the establishment of the supporting stable and strong families scheme. We know that our child protection workers do an incredible job. It is an incredibly difficult job, but they do the job of supporting young people who end up in this system, and they do it for a number of different reasons. These are truly incredible people, and it is so important this evening to give a big shout-out and a big thankyou to those child protection workers for everything that they do. Working with vulnerable kids day in, day out is an incredibly difficult task, which is why this side of the house and our government have consistently backed these workers.

Since 2014 we have invested in more than 1180 new child protection practitioner roles, which means there are more case-carrying workers than ever before. In the past six state budgets we have invested more than $4.4 billion into child protection and family services, with $14 million in last year’s budget to continue programs to support this workforce. As we know, it is an incredible job, and incredible people make up our child protection workers, but they cannot and should not be expected to do it alone.

The challenges facing vulnerable young people are not just for child protection to deal with. It is on all of us across government to consider their needs in different portfolios, because they all play a role: education, health, housing, community safety. This cannot just be the responsibility of the Minister for Children.

We know that this approach already works, and I am going to give you an example. The Victorian housing register recognises parents who are pursuing family reunification as a priority cohort on the waitlist, because we know that having a secure roof over your head helps make for a stable family. We have also got the education supports for children in care program, which provides one-on-one tutoring for kids or young people in the care system who are not engaging with or are at risk of falling out of school, because education for these kids is just as important, if not more important, than other children’s.

I have a bit of a smile talking about this, because when I was first elected in 2018 Westjustice and the minister – I think the minister at the time was the member for Niddrie – got together and had a bit of a pilot for children at risk. They had a special card where they did not have to pay for public transport. They had free public transport, which has evolved this year into us announcing and rolling out free public transport for kids under the age of 18. It was such a great pilot – and thanks to and a big shout-out to Westjustice, who do tremendous work in the western suburbs. Thanks to them advocating for these kids at risk of dropping out of school, of getting fines that they did not intend to get in the first place and ending up before the justice system, we have been able to roll out free public transport for kids under the age of 18, at a saving for parents of almost 800 bucks a year per child. I mean, how incredible. What a great story that is, from this small pilot that took place, I think, in Wyndham. It came through a particular school, and I think that was The Grange –

[Interjection]

Wyndham Central. I was going to say The Grange P–12, but I cannot have favourites, member for Werribee. But that is just how remarkable it is.

Back to the couple of things that I have just mentioned: they align with the goals of the child protection system. They are not just funded or they do not just run directly through child protection services. It cannot be done alone; we need a bit more. We know it because we have also seen it in the action through Scotland’s corporate parenting approach, which we have been talking a lot about over the past couple of months. That scheme ensures that it is the legal duty of public bodies to uphold, safeguard and promote the rights and wellbeing of children and young people who are or have been in the care system.

We are going to be doing that, but we are going to go one step further and create a framework that is actually going to hold government to account for this task, which I think is a really important thing. That is what this bill is all about. The bill is able to do this through the establishment of the supporting stable and strong families scheme. It is going to bring all ministers, department heads and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police together as partners, importantly, under the one scheme. All of these positions will have the capacity to create real, positive change for those vulnerable kids, throughout the entire state government spectrum. This list is not exhaustive, but the bill will allow for other positions and office holders to be prescribed in the future.

How does this scheme work in practice? The bill is going to require that every two years each and every single minister must table a supporting strong and stable families plan for their portfolio. These plans will have to include a clear vision and objectives, along with concrete actions to meet the demand of vulnerable children, with resource allocations and timelines to do so. At the end of each cycle ministers will go ahead and table a progress report; it will detail outcomes and it will detail actions achieved through this plan. This is going to ensure, importantly for these kids, transparency and accountability for each portfolio in this respect. These outcomes will be tracked across key areas like health, education, justice, housing and employment. And because we know that this is an area of policy and that child protection is a system that disproportionately affects Aboriginal Victorians, there is also going to be an outcome for Aboriginal self-determination, which is really important in this case.

The Minister for Children Minister Blandthorn in the other place will still be responsible for overseeing and monitoring the performance of the system and coordinating the scheme with other government departments. To support the minister the Children’s Services Coordination Board will advise the minister on cross-government policies, track system performance and include the voices of children, and really importantly, also include the voices of their carers. This board is the most appropriate mechanism, I think, for oversight, as it is already comprised of the secretaries of the main government departments with existing responsibilities for services delivered to children and families. That is a lot of people involved in this scheme, and with the involvement of those there is transparency and accountability. I think at the end of the day it is really important to report on those things that I have just mentioned, because the outcomes for these really vulnerable children really are driven and determined by not only what we do in here but what is happening on the ground with people within the scheme. It is so incredibly important. What I am hoping is that we will see a reduction of at-risk children. We have a lot of kids in the western suburbs that struggle with engagement or are disengaging with school. We have a lot of services in operation that are there to support and keep those children at school, including the school principals, who, in the last couple of seconds that I have got left in making a contribution on this bill, I will give a big shout-out to. Some of the prins I have met over the past eight years that I have been in this place are absolutely amazing, and they transform children who are totally at risk and so vulnerable because of the circumstances that they are born into, through no fault of their own. These principals take these kids and they lift them up and they transform their lives, giving them an education, which gives them the opportunity to succeed in life. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the house.