Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People
Tabling
Mrs Lorna Clarke (Butler) (11:00 am) : I present for tabling the second report of the Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People titled Review Report 2025: The work of the Commissioner for Children and Young People 2024–25.
Mrs Lorna Clarke: This report considers the Commissioner for Children and Young People's recent reports during both 2024 and 2025. This committee was established in May 2025 and the committee is tasked with monitoring, reviewing and reporting to Parliament on the exercise of the functions of the commissioner and examining her annual and other reports.
Previous committees have conducted a yearly review of the commissioner's activities and published a report as part of the fulfilment of these functions. This committee decided to commence its work by following the same procedure. The report considers the commissioner's current priority issues, the commissioner's five strategic pillars that guide the commissioner's activities and the commissioner's administrative and financial matters.
It also then considers the following reports: the Monitoring of Child-Focused Complaints Systems Report, Profile of Children and Young People in WA 2025, the commissioner's Mid West Listening Tour 2024, the Voting Age Survey: Key findings from the WA Commissioner for Children and Young People's "Voting Age" Survey 2024, the Belonging Across Borders: Understanding the challenges faced by Culturally and Linguistically Diverse children and young people report, Your Environment: Your Say: Key findings from the Commissioner for Children and Young People's 'Your Environment: Your Say' survey 2024 and the Hear Me Out: Inquiry into Implementation Progress for Banksia Hill's Model Of Care Instruction report.
I will take this opportunity to say how pleased I am to be working with my fellow committee members, deputy chair, Hon Julie Freeman MLC, Hugh Jones MLA and Hon Ayor Makur Chuot MLC. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the committee staff for their detailed, diligent and thorough work in 2024 on this committee.
Finally, on behalf of the committee, I would like to acknowledge Jovita Hogan, who has been the research officer on our committee since the start of this Parliament and who is retiring from the service of the Parliament soon. Jovita has been part of the Legislative Assembly staff since 2000 and she has made a significant contribution to the Parliament and the Assembly's committees in particular. She told us this week that she has been to at least 500 committee meetings over the years and most, if not all, were Legislative Assembly committees. For her colleagues, she has been a stalwart of the committee office. She is reliable, dependable and always available to help with advice and practical support when needed. She will be sorely missed. I will also say how wonderful it has been to work with her this year. She is always welcome back in this building and institution. Thank you, Jovita.
