State Government leaves cries for help unanswered

Documents released under Freedom of Information (FOI) reveal that over 5,000 calls to Child Protection went unanswered in the second half of last year.

These documents show that in particular Child Protection calls to the South Division are being left with unacceptable wait times and far too many are going unanswered.

In the South Division alone there were 4,310 calls unanswered and wait times of almost 13 minutes in the six months to 31 December 2019.

Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Child Protection, Nick Wakeling:

“Each one of these unanswered calls is an unanswered cry for help. Daniel Andrews cannot allow this to continue.

“The current pandemic is likely to see more children placed at risk; Labor must ensure that all resources needed to protect these vulnerable children are put into place immediately.

“Daniel Andrews is failing to protect at-risk children as these thousands of calls go unanswered.

“Daniel Andrews has known about these thousands of unanswered calls for months but has failed to act.”

Please download this press release as a PDF