Recording: Placing children at the centre of policymaking

Descriptive transcript

This is actually the second series that you've done on Life's Lottery, so why are you doing this? What do you see the role of podcasts in public policy in Australia?

So, trying to have a sustained policy conversation in almost any area is really difficult in a country. There isn't a public square, there isn't a place to have these conversations. So here we are, in part, talking about this hugely important group of people, knowing that the consequences of choices made for and by young people early on have consequences through their life. And the 64-year-old adoptee who opens our Q&A session captures that well – that there's trauma that can carry through life if things are not thought through and done well. And yet the conversation only comes up in the case of emergency or system failure that's so profound that you have to do something.

We were hoping through the podcast, Jenny Whelan and I, that it would provide a way to have sustained discussion about children in our society and policy around children that we could do over many months and talk to lots of people. And it just gave us an unabashed opportunity to have fabulous conversations with some really great people who know their topic in a depth that's impressive, and to learn from them and to share what we learn with a wider audience. And I hope we've managed to do that, in the hope that we're trying to encourage, as ANA is, governments and ministers and cabinets to think about what a sustained approach would look like to this.

So it's trying to create a public square around a particular problem. And it was just great that Leela came in and just did such a fabulous job sharing the podcast around Indigenous children. It was inspiring to listen to. And it gave you a sense of both optimism and a sense of the issues and a sense of how strong these children were. And we don't get to hear that. And as you know, as you get older in life, you get less and less time to hear from young voices outside your own family, outside your immediate circumstances. And there are very few ways for children to speak to the adult world in an unfiltered and unmediated way. And while this is still a podcast, it's not lived experience, it's nonetheless a powerful way to hear other voices.

Yeah, I agree.

So, Anne, I'm about to come to you with a question about the well-being of young people. But we are going to now first hear again from Shahad about what she had to say on mental well-being and mental health.

What do you think are some of the challenges for young people in your community? What are some of the things that you notice?

Being treated like a child, but expected to act like an adult. One of the challenges that I personally, or notice that other people in my community face, is the challenge of intention – trying to balance society, religion and family. It's a struggle because our generation is so different. Like, we got phones and computers and laptops in such a small amount of time and so much happened – good and bad. For example, when you try to explain to an adult, "this happened to me online," a lot of them won't actually comprehend it. And then with that, their trust with you would go instead of giving you a solution.

Do you feel that your views, the things you care about, are being considered by people in power – so people who are politicians and policymakers?

OK, this is my assumption and view, but with politicians, they try to satisfy adults because the people who are voting for them are adults, not me. So when they make a decision, like as I said earlier, if they were to make a decision about a child, they'll be like, "what's that child doing? Are they working? Are they the one paying taxes? Are they doing this?" The only thing that we have consideration for is school. And even with that, it's not so much because teachers still go on strikes. A lot of schools are still underpaid, don't even have student welfare systems. I've been to 10 schools, so I know a bit about schools and they do need improvement. Lots of it. And I know that you can't go anywhere where it's perfect, but some of the bare minimum stuff is not even there.

So what about some of this other stuff you're talking about, like, you know, feeling opportunities or support for mental health issues or places where you can go and talk out some of these complexities if you can't talk about them at home? Like, does that exist?

Not really, because I'll give you an example. So obviously there are a lot of kids my age who are suicidal, but then if they were to tell a counsellor, they have to tell the parent. And as I said, the parent may not react positively. So a lot of kids don't go and seek help. And if I were to get a counsellor, I have to do it through parents. And I have way too many friends whose parents don't let them go to therapy, don't let them go to psychology, counselling and all that. But then, like I just say, you have to ask help from school. They'll be like, "go to Kids Helpline" or stuff like that. But at the same time, I don't know, like from an honest perspective, Kids Helpline doesn't sound that reliable because every time you talk to them, it's a different person. And with Kids Helpline, it's like usually a 10-minute call. You're going to need more than 10 minutes if you've been through a lot. And there's a lot of, "oh, we have to tell your parents, we have to tell your parents." I understand the safety aspect and everything – do tell parents, but...

The balance between your autonomy and, yeah.

And especially since, like, I'm 17 – only this year when I'm 17, they stopped telling my parents so much, whereas before it was like I would tell them something and they'd go to my parents, and I might as well just tell my parents, why am I telling you? So I highly dislike that and I don't think there's enough thought about mental health and especially with finance.

I know there's bulk billing, but the cost of accessing mental health support – right, there's bulk billing and everything, but some psychologists don't do bulk billing. And also, again, you're going to need parents. It's like, "Mum, let's go to Medicare." And a lot of parents think, "why should I go through that when it's just a fix or it's the wrong one?"

What about, you know, I've heard people your age saying in schools around here in south-western Sydney, "what's the point? There are no jobs. Youth unemployment's so high." So, you know, like even if I do have friends, what's the point? Like, is there any opportunity?

A lot of us are actually thinking of dropping out. We're saying, "oh, it's too much pressure. I don't even know if I'm going to get at least in the 70s and I don't even know if I'm going to get into my uni." And it's that fear or anxiety of it not happening. And we understand that there's pathways, but at the same time, like I said, finances – we all have that hope, isn't it? We're just going to get a job, but we don't know what that job is going to be. So, uncertainty.

Interesting, isn't it? So, Anne, you, in fact, have just been doing consultations with a whole lot of young people across Australia that led to the Keeping Kids Safe and Well, Your Voices report. So, we're going to put – and this is evidently being done to inform the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children – and we're going to put a link to that in the chat. But what can you tell us about the consultations and the work you've done and perhaps also commenting on what Shahad just said?

Well, you know, what Shahad said was, of course, very telling – that there are many barriers to kids getting the help that they need. I mean, every time I talk to kids, it's so refreshing to hear their wisdom. And it's such a privilege.

In the Keeping Kids Safe and Well, Your Voices project, we asked kids, "what is it that keeps kids safe and well in your community?" And we also talked to adults in families – "what is it that helps you to keep your kids safe and well?" And we also looked at what the barriers were. And in response to those broad questions, it was really interesting. So just a few headlines, and then if you're interested, you can look into the report.

They told us that the people that can help them best – the service providers – are the ones who understand them, understand their issues, maybe come from a similar cultural background. And this, of course, was particularly important for First Nations children. They told me that these were the service providers they could trust. They felt that they were respected by the service providers. They listened to them and helped them with a range of their different needs.

And they also talked about needing help for both children and adults in families and trying to make that easy to get. And they described really these wraparound integrated services where they existed as the positives.

Right. But of course, the flip side was that the landscape is incredibly fragmented and there are many barriers. And kids often talked about the adults in their families not being able to get help for mental health issues or drug and alcohol problems and so forth, maybe having to travel long distances to other towns.

I heard a lot about schools not being welcoming to kids and families in that local community, that kids feeling very alienated. A lot about lack of access to housing. Really, everywhere I went, I met young mums who had escaped violent relationships and now were homeless. And they were couch surfing or in caravan parks or somewhere like that with babies and toddlers in tow. This was in Hobart. This was in Canberra. This was – it was everywhere, right? And of course, this is a key factor in children being removed – you know, homelessness. And so housing came up as a huge issue.

And then finally, I'll just mention that a lot of kids told me that they don't feel safe talking to their teachers about problems at home, like violence, because they know teachers are mandatory reporters and they fear that by opening up, they will be removed from their homes.

This raises a whole lot of important issues. But unless you actually talk to kids and listen to how they tick and their experience, their evidence of what needs to change, then really we're kind of swatting in the dark, trying to improve our service systems. They've got to be designed for the people they're meant to be helping – the kids, these kids and their families.

One of the questions in the Q&A, and I'm going to come to a few of these questions now, was from Gillian Brannigan, where she pointed out that when you're talking about the need for a roadmap, could you talk about the role of the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children in contributing to that?

Which is basically just addressed, but is there anything you want to add around the role that the framework could play?

Well, the framework is a plan targeted at the most disadvantaged kids who are absolutely at risk of being removed from their families because of things like homelessness, right? And the framework is one of, I think I said, 12-plus national strategies. So there's the mental health strategy for kids, there's national plans for stopping violence against women and children, et cetera, et cetera. There's many, many of them.

But what we don't have is an overarching roadmap that pulls all of these together, looks at the connections between them, stops them separating in silos that don't talk to each other. And we know from decades of coronial inquests and reports and inquiries, it's the kids that fall in the gaps between these systems that we should be worried about. So we need something that actually pulls these plans together.

So I'm going to go to the Q&As now. Everyone, I'm just reminding you that if there's a question in there that you particularly like the look of, upvote it, because I do tend to just go to the top of the list. So put your little thumbs up against questions you want me to ask.

The one that has received the most thumbs up so far, which I think speaks a bit to what Glyn was talking about in terms of early intervention and how incredibly important it is.

So Frank Brown has said, look, he's got experience in sales and he thinks the best way to get people to agree to spend money is to show them how it will save them money in the future. So spending in early childhood will save several times that amount on prisons in the future. And I know there's been a lot of work done actually around investment in early childhood education and it's the return on investment that that produces.

But is there anyone else on the panel who wants to comment on Frank's point about how you, I suppose, how you make these arguments to sometimes economically dry governments?

Yeah, I guess Frank's pointing to the same process that the Pew Foundation used in the United States, not about children, but about prisons, to just do the economics of prisons and say to the lawmakers in Texas, "you're about to spend four billion dollars building new prisons. Have you actually done the sums on what alternatives would look like?" And that's what early intervention would do.

And that's the logic also of the Just Reinvest program. So we've seen all that in a number of communities with significant effect. And it's the same logic – invest early, provide pathways and choices, provide better alternatives. And you don't have to spend lots of money on pointless law enforcement and imprisonment, which are pointless in the sense that nobody's better off at the end of it. It's something you have to do in response.

It's the argument about not having the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, but responding earlier. The same logic in early intervention in childcare, particularly for children where there are early signs of issues. And we have the makings of a system – we have, in the maternal health care system, which has got a hundred-year history in Australia, actually institutions in many communities, not all, that could provide the basis of doing something really interesting here.

And then the second is a series of very promising initiatives, such as the Our Place initiatives in Victoria, using schools, primary schools, as community hubs. So you build into the school also a health service and also an employment service for the parents. Because one of the puzzlements about the adult world is it's so fragmented and you have to know what you're doing before you can.

If you can integrate around a few institutions, if you can make familiar places available to help in lots of ways, you can actually make a difference here. So I think Frank's on the money.

Leela, do you have anything you want to add to that?

I agree. I think that the justice reinvestment project is a great one. If I was to take an education lens with that, I'd say the importance of data is really critical to have that kind of conversation about costs. I've heard anecdotally for years now from ministers, from bureaucrats, that there's this unofficial rule of thumb in education of not wanting to spend more than $10,000 per student per year on a program. That's not based on any data. It's just a bureaucratic rule of thumb.

I mean, do we know that if you spend less, that that leads to a decline in outcomes? Do we know that if you spend more, it leads to more? There is no data around why that is a tipping point. And so needing to have more sophisticated conversations about costings, I think is really needed in education.

And also thinking about not losing sight of the importance of qualitative data to combine. That's when you get the perfect match of that rigour with the costings and the data behind that and the richness of the qualitative data as well is where we need to get to in education.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, particularly in these areas of social reform. You always need that qualitative overlay, which is sort of what Anne's been doing, travelling around the country, talking to young people.

Anne, do you have anything to add on that point raised by Frank?

Yeah, look, I'm sorry to bring in a negative note. I mean, we've got endless reports of economic value of investing early – decades. I mean, you know, we're weighed down by these economic analysis reports and they don't always make a difference. And that's why I've come to see that actually we have a cultural problem in this country, and it goes to how we value children and how we value childhood as a unique stage of development.

We don't even know that a quarter of our population is children, right? We don't know that Australia is 32nd out of 38 OECD countries on child well-being, as you said in your intro. I think Australians think we're doing OK, but actually, relatively speaking, our systems and the way that we manage the country is failing our children on so many levels, especially First Nations children and other children living in circumstances that are really challenging.

So, you know, I don't think – I think it's the culture change that we need, along with the economic reports. It's not the economic analysis alone.

Now, this one is the next one on my list in terms of most popular upvotes – Fiona Allen saying, "Has news of the WA-led Valuing Children Initiative reached New South Wales yet? Post COVID-19, do we need to bring together like-minded people at a national level again?"

Which is – you've sort of been saying this, Anne, that yes, we do. But do you know about – can you tell us a bit about the Valuing Children Initiative?

Yes. So it is an attempt – it's one of actually many, many groupings of like-minded people who really want to do exactly that, change the culture, elevate children to a level of priority and picking up on issues like raising the age of criminal responsibility and that we're not locking up 10-year-olds. I mean, that just makes no sense at all.

Even looking at things like our corporal punishment laws, which many listeners may not realise are 100 years old, that we're in this country – the only thing that's allowed legally now is for you to hit your children in the privacy of your own home. You can't hit your dog, you can't hit your wife, but you can hit your kids.

So the Valuing Children Initiative is taking on all sorts of issues like that. But it is primarily coming from WA, as noted.

Yeah. So Anne Robinson has another conversation which is close to my heart, which is how do we turn child care from being recommended as a great money maker for investors into something that focuses on the needs of children?

And I would probably slightly edit that to say that the value of child care is the quality of the child care in those early years of a child's learning life. And how do we actually focus on that? Whereas it's always – in fact, going back a bit to what we've just been talking about – it's always sold in an economic context. Well, what about the value of good quality early learning for children?

Does anyone have any thoughts around how we change that narrative on child care in this country or perhaps we don't call it child care, we call it early learning?

Glyn?

You know, I think there's a great national conversation going on around early childhood, first thousand days, and often driven by really important new research on neuroscience and developing brains. And what we now know – we now know so much more even in the last two to three years. And that, in turn, I think is fuelling an argument exactly along the lines you said, that in that first thousand days, with so many children now using child care, whatever we call it, we've got to integrate that science and learn from it and improve it.

I've been really struck by the strength of feeling and the argument, but not seeing the change come through yet on policy. And I guess as a result of the weekend's election and a commitment to a more universal early child care, and the work that, say, the Thrive by Five group has been doing through Minderoo, led by Jay Weatherill, to exactly promote this.

I don't have the answers – that's not my area of expertise – but I do observe that that conversation is alive, well-informed and ambitious. And so the interesting question is, can that translate into policy change?

Anne?

Yeah, look, I think it's just up to us now to make sure that the child bit of the child care conversation gets some prominence, that it isn't just about supporting parents get back to work – although that is important, because getting people out of poverty, getting families out of poverty, is really important for the well-being of children. The mental health and well-being of the adult is very important to children. But I think it is about saying that the child part of that conversation needs some particular focus along the lines that we've been discussing.

Leela, do you have anything to add on that?

I think if we are – I totally agree with where we're heading, that there are some exciting things coming out. We need to keep focus on the things that matter. We also need to think about this – if we're taking a child-centred approach – of the journey that they'll be taking when they do get to primary school and into high school as well.

We talked about how the system is not very joined up. That's especially our fragmented education system – across states, across stages. And if we are going to really focus on lifting the early childhood space, we need to make sure that that can be carried through to primary school and onto high school and beyond, because it's fragmented funding, it's fragmented partners, and the collaboration from child care through to year 12 and beyond is not nearly where it should be.

Leela, I could not agree with you more. It is my one big bugbear about how fragmented the system is. And of course, all the way along the continuum, all the way into university as well. So absolutely, I think we should write a sternly worded letter to the new Prime Minister on that and get it happening.

So I'm just going to say there's one more question from Angelique: is there a framework out there for local government to engage children and young people in the development of policies and procedures? And that's a good question, because often local government is actually at the real coalface, particularly around community development and capacity building. Does anyone know of any good frameworks out there for local government?

No, but I did sit next to a new mayor at the hairdressers the other day. I managed to meet the newly elected mayor, which I was thrilled about. And so, of course, I told her all this stuff. And unfortunately, she said, "oh, that's – well, we have a youth centre," you know, like I think it's sort of quite narrow how local government is seeing their role. And I'm not quite sure she knew what to make of what I was barraging her about, but I offered to help her if they needed any help.

I think that, you know, some states, local government is more involved – like Victoria. I'm in Sydney, so it's different here. And I don't know of frameworks as such, although I do know that VicHealth, as part of their work this year, is really looking at a localised sort of kids' voices in local areas, and they would be working through local jurisdictions, local government levels. So maybe look up the VicHealth website, whoever asked that question. Angelique, go to VicHealth. There's a lot of good things happening in Victoria at the moment, actually. I'm looking there with some jealousy across the border, so it's worth checking out.

So Leela and Anne, I think we're just going to start to pull – if you're desperate to ask a question, put your question in the Q&A, or I might start to wrap up our conversation today.

At the very beginning, Leela, you talked about the need for structural representation for young people in national policy conversations, particularly First Nations young people. I suppose my question to you is, how do we make this happen? And we've been talking today about how we're at this precipice, at this moment, this historical moment – got a brand new government. How do we pull young people, particularly Indigenous young people, into the national conversation? And how important is representation for kids and young people in these conversations?

There was a moment in the podcast episode that I did with Tim and Kirsten – it didn't make the final cut, probably because we got a little bit too excited when we realised this connection – that Kirsten talked about the first time she had met Tim, and it was at this now-defunded network called the National Indigenous Youth Movement of Australia, and how there was this great way of bringing young people together to this youth movement, First Nations kids, getting them together, hearing their voices, spaces, networks. I know that it's hard to show impact sometimes with those networks, but here we are years later, and then I said, "that's so funny, that's how I met Tim as well." And we had this lovely moment about all of these people who've gone on to do really amazing things, but support and connect.

If we're going to be talking about representation, we are now at a point where we have seen older Aboriginal leaders being the first in their space, you know, and that has come at – for a lot of them – at a cost, by being the sole voice, the pressures, the burdens that that places on you. If we are going to be talking about representation, we cannot have it as the sole voice of young people. This is not just about having one youth voice, you know, or one youth element of something and tacking it on. It needs to be a collective group with diverse experiences of young people coming together.

We need to start by supporting and connecting in the first instance, and then making space for them to set their priorities, and then set up structured ways to share those priorities within government. That can look like roundtables, that can look like networks. But what I can say is what it can't be – it can't be one young person, it can't be one voice. It needs to be a collective of voices coming together.

And I think there's something really powerful about what you said – it's actually capacity building and relationship creating for a whole generation of young people, right? I totally think that that's much more powerful than people ever realise.

So my final – final bar one – question I want to just ask to each of the members of the panel is: what are some practical ways – and I suppose in some ways, Leela, you've already answered this – but some practical ways that kids can be better included or thought about as important stakeholders in Australia's policies? What are some practical, perhaps, things we could do almost straight away?

Well, I'm really enjoying hearing about the Youth Futures Summits, the virtual conversations that are going on now. There are ideas around a children's voice initiative, and Anne's been involved in this. There's sort of a recognition – Leela's point about data is central to this discussion – so we're starting to see some survey work and some other work to give us a more rounded picture of children's preferences and voices that aren't seen.

I'd also like to see more for government agencies that work with children to engage with community sector organisations – Save the Children and the many others – not around particular initiatives, but just a discussion: what have we learned, what have we understood? There aren't many structured opportunities to have conversations that are not instrumental, that don't have to lead to a positive proposal – just to learn, just to hear. So finding ways to do that, because as I said, a lot of people are invested in this area. There's a huge amount going on, it's just the range and diversity and variety doesn't come to cohere in any logical way. So that's what I'd like to see.

What about you, Anne?

Yeah, so I get asked that a lot. So that shows there is a little bit of interest now – a lot of organisations and government departments. So I agree with both Leela and Glyn. We need a multi-layered approach. It's not just one thing. You know, you can have a youth parliament, youth advisory groups, consultation surveys, whatever.

But the first – I think this – I'd like to pose five questions we need to ask ourselves first, before we talk to any kids.

Firstly, why are we talking to them? What's the purpose? We need to make it purposeful.

Secondly, what is it that we want to do? What is it that we want their advice on?

Thirdly, who's the audience for their evidence and insights? Is it us? Is it government? Is it whatever?

Fourthly, how are we going to use what we hear from the kids? What are we going to do with the information? You know, there's a huge gap there, actually translating the voice of kids into policy and service design.

And finally, how will we go back to the kids to explain how their views were acted upon? This is the accountability back piece.

You know, there's a lot of consultation, over-consultation in some cases. I think we have to start to ask ourselves some deep searching questions and then match the mechanism of engaging with kids to the purpose and make sure it's accountable and meaningful.

Exactly. And that gives the kids a sense that they've actually been heard rather than yet again participating in another conversation that doesn't go anywhere.

Now, last but not least, we've got two minutes left, so it's a very short question to each of you. And I know I said at the beginning that I don't spring questions on people, but it is to do with the election, so I gave you some.

If, say, next week Anthony Albanese gets back from the Quad and asks to meet with you and he wants one thing that Labor should do in government for this term from you, or the most effective thing they could do – so have a little bit of a think.

No, I don't need to think.

OK, Anne first. What would you say?

I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Well, look, just the wafer was one. If I could only say one thing, I would say to agree to start to work on this national roadmap. Because it's complex, it's hard, it means mushing down the barriers within government, you know, like it's a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done. But if he could agree to start that work and to get the key ministers to work together across their portfolios, I would die happy if he agrees to that.

All right. Glyn, what is the one thing you're going to put to him?

Well, I'm going to cheat and stand behind Anne and say, it's clearly the collaboration coordination issue is the central one. And finding a new way into that. Lots of people have tried, there's been lots of experience with this, going back to the 1980s with the SCARF experiment in Victoria. But it's worth another go.

And Leela, you get the final word.

I would ask for an Assistant Minister for Indigenous Education. I absolutely love Aunty Linda Burney, and I think she has got an amazing scope of work ahead of her – really exciting pieces of work. But we need clear focus on Indigenous education to keep up with the advances that have been happening elsewhere, to think about how this will fit into the existing partnership networks. This needs solid attention, and an Assistant Minister can deliver that platform for those voices in a way that can work in a complementary manner with the Indigenous Affairs Minister and the Education Minister as well.

Wonderful. Fantastic. Well, we'll organise those meetings and off you go next week.

So thank you everybody for joining us today. Thank you particularly to our panellists – you were fantastic. That was a really great conversation, and I think a conversation that has some optimism and hope attached to it as well. Thank you for the work you did on the podcast too. We really enjoyed collaborating with the Paul Ramsay Foundation to produce the podcast. And thank you to our audience – you've been great. Sorry if I didn't get to ask a question, but I noticed there were some chats going on, so hopefully some of your questions were answered by each other. And we look forward to seeing you at our next webinar. Than