Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Canberra are four times times more likely to end up the subject of a child protection report than their non-Indigenous peers -and that gap has only widened over the past decade.
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The Productivity Commission's latest report on government services has again shown that the ACT has the highest rate of child protection reports about Indigenous children in Australia.
But the territory also has one of the lowest rates of substantiation of those allegations.
There were 345.4 child protection notices per 1000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders aged 0-17 years in the ACT in 2017-18, slightly down from 356.3 per 1000 in 2016-17.
However that rate has more than doubled from 176.7 per 1000 in 2008-09.
For non-Indigenous children, the rate of child protection reports was 46.1 per 1000, lower than in 2008-09.
However the ACT also had the second lowest rate of substantiated reports per Indigenous child in the country, at 22.4 per 1000. For non-Indigenous children, the rate of substantiations was 2.4 per 1000 children.
The ACT also had the highest rate of Indigenous children in out-of-home care, at 101.4 per 1000 children. This figure has more than doubled since 2008-09, when the rate was 41 per 1000 Indigenous children.
The territory also had the second highest rate of Indigenous children on care and protection orders in the country, at 108.4 per 1000. In 2008-09, that figure was 56.6 per 1000.
The report showed Indigenous children are four times more likely to be reported to child protective services, seven times more likely to have an investigation launched and substantiated, and 11 times more likely to be in out-of-home care or subject to a care and protection order.
That disproportionality of Indigenous children in care has widened since 2010-11, when they were seven times more likely to be in care than non-Indigenous children. At that time, Indigenous children were around three times more likely to be reported to child protective services.
The data is bleak but unsurprising, as the ACT has repeatedly ranked among the worst in the nation.
It's a gap that Minister for Youth and Children Rachel Stephen-Smith partly blamed on racism in the community, when asked to explain the disparity last year.
However, Ms Stephen-Smith said there were signs within the data that showed the ACT's policies were working.
“Placement stability is a key focus of the ACT’S five-year strategy, A Step Up for Our Kids, and has improved significantly since the strategy was introduced,” Ms Stephen-Smith said via a statement.
“94.6 per cent of children exiting out of home care within 12 months were doing so after only one or two placements in 2017-18, significantly higher than the 2015-16 proportion of 76.7 per cent.”
Ms Stephen-Smith said the rate of children in care who are placed with relatives or kin rather than foster carers was also increasing.
“For the third year in a row, the ACT has Australia’s second highest rate of placements with relatives of kin – 56.5 per cent in 2017-18 and 60.8 per cent among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children,” she said.
On balance, the number of child protection reports has been rising for the last decade.
In 2017-18, 14,807 reports were made, compared to 9595 in 2008-09.
The number of investigations has remained relatively steady (2075 finalised in 2017-18 versus 1777 in 2008-09), however the time taken to finalise the cases has increased substantially.
Forty per cent of investigations last year took between 29 to 62 days, while 34 per cent took over 90 days.
This stands in stark contrast to 2009-10, when 67 per cent of investigations took less than 28 days. Now only 6 per cent of inquiries are wrapped up in that period.
