Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The June Senate budget estimates confirmed that the Albanese Labor government promises lots, delivers little and has scant regard for taxpayers' money. The first job of any government is to keep its people safe—to protect our borders—but Australians now know that that is not the government's way. Labor doesn't leverage the tools or legislation available to it. Labor doesn't act with urgency when the evidence is so crystal clear. Labor does not deliver what it promises, even when safety and lives depend on it, and Aussies know it.

The Commonwealth Child Safe Framework has been in place since 2019. It is blatantly obvious what it is: the Child Safe Framework exists to diminish risk to children in related organisations. Under this government's watch, some senior public servants could not even say if they use the framework. They could not say that all government statutory authorities are complying with it. They could not even say that organisations funded by you, me and the taxpayer are using it. And, yet, this is a government framework. I am talking about organisations that deliver crisis response and domestic violence services. They provide legal advice to support victim-survivors and work with the healing of young children.

The Albanese government ministers are happy to get photos with these organisations and put out media releases to promote their most recent funding decisions when they could have, should have and must have known these same organisations are noncompliant on so many indicators of concern. All organisations should be held to the same standard without fear or favour. No organisation that delivers to the most vulnerable people should be out of scope and no individual running those organisations exempt from great scrutiny.

Amid many administrative governance issues, the peak legal aid body for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, NAAJA, has also failed to conduct police and working with children checks on its board and staff. In South Australia KWY, according to its regulator ORIC, whose job is it to check organisations are run properly, said KWY hasn't met government reporting obligations. And these are not the only ones. As of today ORIC says that 1,243 corporations are overdue in their reporting obligations and more than half are overdue over several financial years. How is it feasible not to do an audit of these services? The answer is: it is not.

An audit of organisations that exist to support vulnerable people is needed and it's needed now. That these organisations deliver to the most vulnerable is not a reason not to demand governance compliance; in fact it's the very reason to do so. Every time that there is maladministration or fraud, and no more than in those organisations where there are the most vulnerable and those most vulnerable rely on those services, they depend on them. It's important that they comply. This government hands over taxpayers' money to these noncompliance organisations that deal daily with vulnerable women and children, and with staff and directors who don't have current police and working with children checks. The evidence of that failure speaks volumes.

As shadow minister for child protection and the prevention of family violence, I turn to the spectacular failure of those 500 frontline workers to deliver to this critical sector. In the two-year mark since that broken promise has passed, Albanese is scrambling right now, having delivered just 63 of the promised 500 frontline workers—63 is a long way from the 352 workers expected by the end of the month under the federal funding agreement. That's what happens when your priorities are wrong, when you focus on that voice to parliament rather than responding to the cries of those who need help now.

In August last year Minister Rishworth even said, 'Every new worker employed will be able to make a difference for women experiencing violence,' and yet at the same time she had delivered zero—not a single frontline worker in the sector. This contribution is about a government that fuels a culture of low expectations. The evidence is in. It is simply no longer feasible or responsible for those in this place who say they want to improve the lives of the most vulnerable not to vote for an audit that we've been asking for for so long.

Senate adjourned at 20:18