Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We know that Australia is, generally speaking, a wonderful place for most children. But—while the majority of kids who are lucky enough to grow up in Australia benefit from the high quality of our health and education systems and from the opportunities that exist in a free, safe and democratic society—it must be acknowledged that kids within certain demographics face very different prospects indeed. It is in recognition of that fact that I join with UNICEF and the Australian children's coalition of organisations in welcoming the government's announcement of the establishment of a National Children's Commissioner.

As the chair of the UNICEF parliamentary association, this gives me particular satisfaction and I was glad to move a successful motion at the ALP national conference last year on this issue, while noting that the establishment of a National Children's Commissioner has been a longstanding commitment of the Labor Party and the Attorney-General herself. In addition, as a former UN staff member, someone with a keen interest in human rights and a member of the newly established Joint Committee on Human Rights, it is wonderful to see the establishment of a National Children's Commissioner, which responds to the specific recommendation of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that a national human rights institution include within its structure an identifiable commissioner specifically for children's rights. The creation of a National Children's Commissioner is not before time, and it is vital to driving efforts to establish a level playing field for all Australia's children.

To give you an idea of the challenges and obstacles that our most vulnerable children face, I refer to the Listen to children report published by the Australian Child Rights Taskforce last year. It found, for instance, that if you were born into an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander family you were three times more likely than other Australians to die before reaching adulthood. You are also 24 times more likely to be in jail before you turn 17 and almost 10 times more likely to be in out-of-home care. It found that, of the 105,000 homeless people in Australia, 50,000 are under the age of 24, and our out-of-home care system established to look after our most vulnerable children is not in good repair. Children in out-of-home care have increased by 51.5 per cent since 2005. We are not sure why this is happening in Australia, because Australia collects no comprehensive data on these children.

The children in these categories remain underacknowledged and let down by our current policies and public services, and it is for them that a National Children's Commissioner will be of most significance. An appropriately resourced National Children's Commissioner will give Australian kids a voice at the national level and bring attention to issues of neglect, abuse and discrimination. An effectively resourced national advocate for children will offer a powerful focus for hearing children's voices, especially on the subjects of youth justice, child protection, Indigenous health outcomes and homelessness.

The commissioner will have an important role in monitoring, reviewing and commenting on laws, policies, services standards and practices that affect young Australians. As part of the Australian Human Rights Commission, such a position will have the mechanisms to receive and investigate complaints of breaches of children's rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child through the implementation of child-specific complaints system. It will be able to assist in and drive law reform and policy development and develop consultation mechanisms that encourage the participation of children. An effective commissioner will collaborate and coordinate with the community and business sectors to develop and strengthen community understanding of the issues and experiences of children, and have the power to intervene in court proceedings involving the rights of children and young people.

The commissioner must advocate for effective data collection on children's health, wellbeing, development and participation and, of course, all of these tasks and functions will depend on appropriate resources. In the past there have been too many instances where a lack of coordinated response by governments and their departments have allowed children and young people to suffer. Youth homelessness and the health and education of Indigenous young people are two obvious examples. We really need bipartisan support for the role of National Children's Commissioner to ensure that the outcomes for children are effective. The commissioner will, of course, have guaranteed independence from government and it should be a matter of common ground to support a properly resourced commission.

This is a welcome and exciting announcement, but the hard work of implementation is ahead of us. My question, then, to the Attorney-General is: how is this budget set up to put the needs of Australian kids front and centre of the development of government policies and programs now and into the future?

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