What the Tasmanian Liberals will do:

Introduce legislative reform to permanently remove abused or neglected children from parents or guardians who refuse to change, even with intensive support, so the child can have stability and support from a family environment that can provide the care it needs.

We must ensure that all children get the opportunity to have a stable start in life. For each child there is just one chance to get it right. In two years there has been in this State an 80 per cent increase in notifications of child abuse, a 196 per cent increase in notifications requiring investigation, a 31 per cent increase in children placed on care and protection orders, and a 40 per cent increase of children in out‐of‐home care. Children are not getting the chance they deserve.

Like preventive health, reform in the area of Child and Family Services is long overdue. Each year we are spending more and more on unworkable systems, concentrating on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead of the fence at the top. Early childhood, between birth and five years old, is the critical time when 75 per cent of a child’s intellectual capacity is developed.

A Hodgman Liberal government will invest heavily in intensive family support to all families who need it, but we will also send a clear message that neglect and abuse will no longer be tolerated.

We will not allow children to drift from parent to foster carer and back again so that they have no sense of belonging. The system must change and attitudes must change. Where abusive parents will not change, even with intensive support, a child should go permanently to a family that will provide the care and stability that child needs.