- Published:
- Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 10:34 am
We are pleased to see changes to Victoria's child protection laws that return the focus to individualised decision-making in a child’s best interests, with greater flexibility to support families to stay together.
The reforms come after years of advocacy from legal services and Aboriginal community controlled organisations to change the 2016 ‘permanency amendments’ which brought in strict timelines for families to reunify.
The Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Stability) Bill 2025 was yesterday passed by the Victorian Parliament.
It will bring in changes including:
- removing the 12-month and 24-month time limits for children to reunify with their parents under family reunification orders
- removing adoption from the hierarchy of permanency objectives
- replacing ‘permanency’ with ‘stability’ as a key element in determining the best interests of the child.
‘The stability Bill restores key principles in our child protection system – recognising every family is unique and needs tailored decisions, appropriate support, and sufficient time to address challenges,’ said Associate Director Jackie Anders, from our Children’s Law team.
‘These changes will strengthen the chances that families will get the help they need to care for their children and stay together safely.’
The removal of time limits implements a recommendation of the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Yoorrook for Justice report.
‘The increased flexibility acknowledges there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to families, and that a faster decision is not always a better decision,’ Jackie said.
More time for families to reunify
Under the changes, the Children’s Court will be able to issue multiple extensions of family reunification orders of up to 12 months as long as it is in a child’s best interests to do so.
When considering reunification order extensions, the court must now consider a parent’s engagement with support to help reunify, and any circumstances that may impede reunification, including lack of timely access to necessary services and supports.
This is important because we see in our work that delays in accessing support services can pose significant barriers to family reunification.
Our child protection lived experience consultant Isla Swanston said it was essential that parents continue to receive meaningful support and a genuine opportunity to work toward reunification.
‘Parents who engage with services and demonstrate positive change should have pathways to advocate for their children and their family’s future,’ she said.
‘Equally important is ensuring that children maintain consistent, meaningful contact, even when they cannot safely return to their birth family’s care.
‘Ongoing connection to family preserves identity, belonging, and emotional stability, and prevents children from growing up feeling disconnected or lost from their roots.’
Jackie said the passing of the Bill was an important moment for all organisations who have worked to reduce and address the harms of the permanency amendments.
‘This delivers much-needed change and marks a long-awaited reform for which we – alongside Aboriginal legal services, other legal sector partners, community agencies and lived experience experts – have been advocating for nearly a decade,’ she said.
What were the permanency amendments?
Changes were made to child protection law in 2016, aimed at reducing the length of legal proceedings and fast-tracking children into permanent care arrangements.
They created fixed deadlines for children to reunite with their families.
These deadlines put intense pressure on families seeking reunification, many of whom could not access the help they needed because of long wait times and limited service availability, especially in regional areas.
The rigid reunification timelines and a lack of suitable permanent care options also led to an increase in the number of children being placed in out of home care on two-year Care by Secretary Orders (CBSOs), where the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing takes on parental responsibility including decisions about whether and when a child can see their family.
CBSOs often result in children being moved between multiple placements, including residential care units.
In our 2020 report on the impacts of the permanency amendments, we found they had limited the Children’s Court’s ability to oversee departmental decisions.
The amendments had a disproportionate impact on First Nations children who are at least 20 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children.
The government has conceded that the amendments were ‘too inflexible’ and ‘disadvantaged some families’.
While we welcome the changes, Jackie said that ‘legislation alone cannot ensure stability and safety’.
‘The whole system needs to work together to prioritise the wellbeing of children. This includes prioritising investment in early and intensive support for families to prevent child removal wherever possible’.
Supporting Stable and Strong Families Bill 2025
We acknowledge that the Supporting Stable and Strong Families Bill 2025 also passed the Victorian Parliament this week. We welcome its intent to provide whole-of-government accountability and support to improve outcomes for at-risk children and families.
Close engagement with community and legal sector partners in implementation of this Bill will be essential to ensuring this goal is realised.
More information
Read our 2024 opinion piece calling for child protection reform
Learn more about our advocacy on child protection
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