Natasha Maclaren-Jones
Shadow Minister for Families and Communities
The Minns Labor Government must explain why it has failed to answer basic questions about how many children reported to the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) subsequently died or suffered abuse or injury.
The NSW public, mandatory reporters and frontline caseworkers deserve to know whether children who were reported to DCJ were properly protected.
Shadow Minister for Families and Communities Natasha Maclaren-Jones said instead, the Minister has refused to provide a clear answer to a question that goes to the very heart of the child protection system's performance.
"A ROSH report is not paperwork. It is an alarm bell that a child may be at risk of serious harm," Mrs Maclaren-Jones said.
"When those alarms are raised, the community is entitled to know whether the system responded, whether children were seen, and whether they were left exposed to further abuse, injury or death."
"Every day the Minister refuses to answer is another day families, caseworkers and the public are left wondering whether warnings were ignored."
DCJ's own reporting shows the stakes could not be higher. In 2024, 89 children and young people who died in NSW were known to DCJ. Of those 89 children, five died from inflicted or suspicious injuries. The report also records that 36 were infants under 12 months, while 26 were Aboriginal children.
"The Minister cannot claim to take child safety seriously while refusing to disclose how many children reported at risk were later harmed, injured or died,"
"If the answer is that the Government does not know, that is a failure. If the Government does know but will not say, that is a cover-up."
Critical incident reports to the Minister have doubled over the past two years to 1,116 in 2025-26.
"More than 1,100 critical incident reports in a single year is not business as usual, it is a system under extraordinary strain," Mrs Maclaren-Jones said.
"The Minister must come clean, release the figures, and explain what she is doing to ensure no child is left behind after a warning has been raised."
