History of child protection legislation
To help the Royal Commission with its work, this report was commissioned to document the history of legislation relating to out of home care in Australia - from its establishment in 1860 to today. The changes in legislative responses reflect changing attitudes to parents, family preservation, children's rights, and special provision for migrants, disabled children, and Aboriginal families. Although isolated Acts were passed in different jurisdictions in the first half of the 19th century, it was not until the 1860s that the Australian colonies systematically engaged with the issue of child welfare and protection. This engagement began with the construction of a regime of child removal which survived largely unchallenged until the beginnings of deinstitutionalisation in the 1970s. This report focuses on the period 1860 to 1990, although the impact and aftermath of deinstitutionalisation from the 1990s on is briefly touched on at various points
eBook, English, 2014
[Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse], [Sydney, N.S.W.], 2014