Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I move‑
That the House take note of the following matter: prioritising children and young people.
We have all heard in this place how fond the government, and particularly the Premier, is of telling us the stadium will shore up the future of Tasmanian children, as if a monolithic concrete stadium will somehow magically transform the lives of children in our state and make everything better for them. It is a long bow for sure, particularly when the stadium is going to force Tasmania into intergenerational debt that today’s children will be paying off for pretty much their whole lives.
It’s ridiculous to suggest a stadium will make everything better for our children. I love Rum’un, but hugging a cute mascot of a team we all love will be cold comfort for Tasmanian children in the long run. That’s because paying down our debt will limit the services the government can provide, and we are seeing that in the Budget already.
The government has boosted payments to services for children and youth, but those boosts are temporary, promptly cut in following years.
The Intensive Family Engagement Service, the highest level of support available to struggling families, designed to keep families together and keep children out of out-of-home care, gets $4 million extra for two years, then is cut. These services are currently barely able to meet the need and they will go back to that situation. There’s an out-of-home care increase, a critical $15 million extra over two years, desperately needed, given decades of underfunding in out-of-home care: Two years in and the increase is cut.
The Foster and Kinship Carer Uplift is vital for foster carers who care for our most vulnerable children but are struggling to make ends meet due to rising costs of living. The uplift is funded for one year, then cut. Perhaps the government think they will have fixed the cost of living by then.
Transition to Independence is funding that supports young people in out-of-home care to stand on their own two feet, support that is critical for young people who do not have a family to catch them when they fall. It receives a $3 million boost for two years, then is cut. For young people transitioning out of care after that two years, sorry, but it looks like you’ll miss out because a stadium you can’t eat or sleep in is taking priority. Services that will improve the futures of Tasmanian children will wind back before we even begin to see their positive effect.
Then there are ongoing issues with the safety of children in our state. We have had a commission of inquiry, 191 recommendations and work to implement all these recommendations. Despite all of that, right now, young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre are being reported as victims of reportable conduct such as physical violence and sexual misconduct.
According to the Office of the Independent Regulator’s (OIR) annual report, in 2024-25, 33 young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre were victims in a reportable conduct notification. That equates to 47 per cent of young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre. Concerningly, five notifications were for incidents that occurred in the previous year but were not reported within that year. The OIR was so concerned about child safe practices in Ashley Youth Detention Centre, they pivoted their planned monitoring program from the community to instead focus on examining internal practices in the youth justice facility. Meanwhile, in out‑of‑home care, the OIR received 177 reportable conduct notifications during the same period.
It is deeply concerning to hear that even when COI recommendations are being implemented, notifications of reportable conduct continue in both youth justice and out‑of‑home care settings. Why are we still hearing about reportable conduct requiring investigation in youth justice and children’s services?
These two things are not unrelated. If we were funding services for families and children adequately there would be less need for youth justice and out‑of‑home care. We would be addressing the root cause of antisocial behaviour and lack of safety in families. Investing in children’s futures means not just funding short‑term bubbles of investment, it means committing the necessary funding to the long term, into the future until the problems are resolved.
The government needs to drop the pretence and just be straight up with us. The future of Tasmanian children will not be transformed by the stadium. Instead, they will be saddled with debt. The government needs to get real care for children and young people in Tasmania, to prioritise services and supports and protections for the long term. To do less is to fail children and young people into the future.
