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Strengthening accountability for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
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 Strengthening accountability for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in New South Wales continue to experience poorer outcomes across a range of areas, including particularly in the child protection system. Numerous reviews have urged strengthened mechanisms for accountability as a critical component for safeguarding the rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, especially those focused on the child protection system.
Building on this consensus about the need for greater accountability, this paper seeks to explore the nature and structure of accountability that will serve the rights, interests and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, both within the child protection system, and more broadly.
The paper firstly considers the evidence of reviews which agreed that increased transparency and public accountability is a central pillar for improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, both in child protection and across intersecting systems such as youth justice, housing, education, disability and health. It finds that few-if any-of these are presently oriented in a way that represents the interests and perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This is the case despite the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children evident across all systems.
The paper presents two complementary accountability mechanisms to address these shortcomings:
- a New South Wales Child Protection Commission, to improve oversight and coordinated regulation of the child protection system for all children
- a New South Wales Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, with a mandate to promote and protect the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
These mechanisms will offer significant specialisation in critical areas, while allowing coordination of functions in the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
