00:01What we're seeing in the data today is the tale of two stories.
00:05One is of what is possible and that's something that needs to be high-fived.
00:10We saw preschool enrolments now not only on track but about to be closed.
00:15We've met the target.
00:16But what we're also seeing is what happens, the devastating consequences of governments
00:22failing to step up when they should have, failing to invest in the right places and
00:26failing to work alongside their communities.
00:28It certainly is a red flag and it's one that we've been signalling for a very, very long
00:34time and the truth of it is all of those targets potentially could have been hit if we were
00:40moving fast enough, if we were putting investment in the right places at the right time.
00:44Because the things that cause children to come into contact with juvenile justice systems,
00:49out of home care systems, could all be solved in getting in sooner.
00:53Not putting investments into jails, not putting investments into building new facilities, getting
00:58into families and supporting them sooner.
01:01And that starts in early childhood.
01:02Yeah, I'm keen to understand a little bit more about where that investment should go.
01:06As I just said, you know, First Nation kids are spending two months in unsentenced detention.
01:11How much of a part does unstable housing play?
01:15Because if you don't have an appropriate bail address, where do you go?
01:18Absolutely.
01:19Look, poverty is an underlying driver in all of those conditions.
01:23And again, that starts with supporting the child and supporting the family.
01:27And these are really easy things to understand.
01:29You only have to think about what you need to do as a parent.
01:31What do you need?
01:32Do you need a house to sleep in?
01:33You need clean clothes.
01:34You need a washing machine.
01:35You need to be able to put food on the table.
01:38You need to ensure that you can access medical help.
01:40All of those things play a fundamental role in what we're seeing right now.
01:44Housing is one of them.
01:46And we know that we have a housing crisis in regional or remote areas, but also in vulnerable
01:51communities.
01:52So these are areas where there is actually a dedicated line, a direct line to investments
01:57that the government could have made and should have made sooner.
02:00But underlying all of it are things like we know that children sitting in juvenile detention
02:06centres have often had contact with child protection systems.
02:09We know that those systems are almost like a pipeline into detention.
02:14We know that.
02:15We know it's almost inextricable.
02:17We know that if a child comes into contact with the justice system, very likely that they're
02:22going to be back in that justice system, even if it was only for remand because the impact
02:27of detention on children is criminogenic.
02:30So we know that within three months, that child is likely to go back into it.
02:34Now, this gets really concerning when you look at the draconian concepts of children being
02:40able to be treated like adults and children being able to be put into those facilities
02:45from the age of 10.
02:46If you go in at 10 and at 10 and three months, you're back in again, that cycle just keeps
02:52on repeating itself.
02:53So what it shows us is we should have been investing sooner.
02:56It shows us that we can close the gap when we genuinely make an effort.
03:01But we're not putting enough support into families.
03:04We're not acting soon enough.
03:05And most importantly, we're not really getting in underneath the hood of that preschool target
03:10and going, is something else failing here?
03:12And that's ensuring that children are developmentally ready to start their learning journeys.
03:17Because that's where we get real outcomes and we get them really fast.
03:21I mean, we've had many conversations over the years, Catherine, about targets not being
03:26met.
03:26And I will get onto the preschool because that is a shining light.
03:29But just finishing off in this area of unsentenced detention.
03:34I mean, if you could, you're saying things need to be happening and they need to be happening
03:38faster.
03:38If you could start something like that today, where would you be looking?
03:42What would you be doing?
03:43That one's really easy.
03:45And the national agreement talks to this.
03:48You start by going to the communities and asking families what's going wrong.
03:51Is it a housing issue?
03:53Is it a food issue?
03:54Is it a schooling issue?
03:55Is it that you have a child that you're working with that has undiagnosed developmental delays?
04:00Is it that we need a different way of working with this particular family?
04:04What else is going on?
04:05The only people that can tell you what is happening in their lives are the people living
04:10in the communities themselves.
04:11The only people that can solve that are them.
04:13But they need to be able to do that by working in government because it is government that
04:17controls the levers and the powers and the programs and even how things are invested.
04:22Ending on a positive note, we know that the target for preschool enrolment is now on track.
04:27Could there be any lessons learned from that that could be applied to other targets?
04:32Oh, it absolutely is a massive lesson because preschools pretty much didn't exist in those
04:37vulnerable communities.
04:38So not only were they not available, our families weren't being trained to understand how to
04:44use them.
04:44And when I say trained, it was really basically setting up the habits that most people take
04:50for granted in this country.
04:51But if you've never had access to preschool, then those things aren't available to you.
04:55So what we've seen is an incredible investment in working with communities to ensure that children
05:01have access to preschool.
05:03So what is fundamentally flawed though, because there's a red flag in this one, is if you lift
05:08up the hood.
05:08So think of it like a car, we've got a great car.
05:12The outside of it's looking awesome.
05:14That's the one that ensures potentially you can get there.
05:17If you lift up the hood on that, what you find is a failing in the mechanics because the
05:21early education developmental domains are still off track.
05:25Now those ones are fundamentally critical because they're the ones that see children fail to succeed
05:32at school.
05:32They're the ones that ensure that our families are responding to developmental needs at the right
05:38time.
05:38They're the ones that set people up on a trajectory for success.
05:42Now that success includes those targets that are fundamentally failing like suicide rates.
05:48Those are the children that we missed in that cohort.
05:51So preschool, awesome.
05:52High five.
05:53Let's celebrate it.
05:54But let's look under the hood.
05:56Let's see where the red flags are and let's really step up to what needs to happen now.
06:00Invest sooner, invest in children, invest in families, invest in communities and take them
06:06on the path with you.
06:08Invest in children, invest in children, be sick.
06:08Just have to be manufactured with children.finder
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