Six children in the Victorian child protection system have died in a three-month period

ABC NEWS (Australia)

New data released in Victoria has revealed six children, known to child protection, have died in just three months, continuing a worrying trend in the system.

Transcript

00:00These are very troubling figures and this is not an isolated set of data, there's been

00:08an uptick over the last four or five years in the number of deaths of children known

00:13to Child Protection as well as allegations of abuse.

00:16In this latest data we talk about six children who have died who are clients of Child Protection

00:21but there's also 586 major incident reports filed including 286 allegations of abuse and

00:28this is really serious.

00:29And there's been a general increase over the last couple of years and there's been lots

00:33of questions asked to the government over a very long time about why is Child Protection

00:38getting worse and what can the government do about it.

00:41The government, the Premier this morning says they are trying their best.

00:44There is more, absolutely more work to be done because any death of any child is a tragedy

00:49but particularly those who are the most vulnerable kids and that's why I again want to thank

00:54those Child Protection workers who just do such an incredibly important work.

01:00It's their commitment to caring for kids that I want to thank them for.

01:06These children deserve to be cared for, they are our most vulnerable and we need to see

01:11a government take responsibility.

01:13If the Minister can't fix this very broken, very overstretched system where case workers

01:19are not getting allocated children because the system is so overstretched, then the Minister

01:25should resign.

01:26That's the opposition there, Roma Britnell saying the Minister should resign.

01:31The Premier says she has full confidence in the Minister, Lizzy Blanthorn.

01:34But this is an issue that's gone on for a very long time.

01:36The Labor government here has been in power for 10 years now and before that the opposition

01:41was only in power for four years.

01:43So there's lots of questions about how this situation continues to get worse and what

01:48steps can government actually take to try and fix this very troubled system.

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