Across my four-decade career in early childhood education, one truth guided me – investing from the outset in children and families builds safer, healthier, more productive communities.
Having stepped out of retirement temporarily and into the role of Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People, I confess I was surprised to learn how regularly this office must advocate for government to invest early, intervene sooner, and involve children and young people in decisions that affect them.
Recent examples of this advocacy include submissions my team and I have made in response to a Disability Inclusion Plan discussion paper, as well as Tasmania’s next 20-Year Preventive Health Strategy.
Through these, we’ve argued for the greater recognition of children and young people as stakeholders worthy of recognition, consultation and investment.
If we want a more inclusive Tasmania, we must consult meaningfully with children and young people. And if we want a healthier Tasmania 20 years down the line, we must invest in and involve today’s children and young people, and those yet to be born. Anything less would be a cop out.
Making such submissions is one way the Commissioner for Children and Young People performs their role. Of course, my work and the work of my team isn’t confined to our desktops, and during two recent community visits, I’ve seen more evidence of the importance of helping children and young people lay strong foundations early.
Last month, I joined the staff at Kingston Library for National Simultaneous Storytime. There, I helped guest readers Peter Gee and Jeremy Picone share the fun of Luna Roo the Kangaroo Baller with children from Taroona Primary School. It was wonderful to see children respond with exuberance to Luna’s messages about equity, determination, courage and teamwork.
Reading to, and with, children and young people is vital for their development and is recommended by educators and experts as an essential ongoing activity during each child’s first 1,000 days, and beyond.
Such small, everyday investments matter, but they must be accompanied by sustained policy commitments.
In my former role as chief executive of Lady Gowrie Tasmania, and like so many other interested Tasmanians, I contributed to It Takes a Tasmanian Village – this state’s first ever Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy for 0-25-year-olds. The strategy included a commitment to issue each Tasmanian newborn with a book of their own, and reiterated the importance of reading, along with other foundational activities, supports and child-rights commitments.
When it launched It Takes a Tasmanian Village, the state government was rightly lauded for a commitment to fund its strategy to the tune of $100 million, over four years, until 2025.
However, it is concerning that half-way through 2026, responsibility for the future of the strategy has shifted from the Department of Premier and Cabinet to the Department for Education, Children and Young People, with scant public information available about how it will be funded or sustained from here on. Clarity is needed now.
I’ve also had the pleasure of visiting the modest workshop site of Tassie Mums, a volunteer-run charitable organisation that sources and provides essentials for newborns and children across the state. This includes providing safe, comfortable cots for babies to sleep in, beautiful books to be read, clothes to keep them warm during Tassie’s biting winters, and other daily essentials.
In the past financial year alone, Tassie Mums supported more than 2,700 babies and children to receive close to $1 million in material aid, all bundled into lovingly prepared hampers. A striking fact about this community-sourced support is that close to 40 per cent of the goods dispersed by this charity are distributed through government agencies to children in the care of the state. This level of support highlights the scale of unmet need, and the precarious limits of relying on volunteers alone.
I was deeply inspired by what I saw at Tassie Mums. I saw a boots-on-the-ground response to significant, growing need within our community, and hard-working Tasmanians doing what they could to nurture the newest members of our community.
It is my great pleasure to serve as Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People, albeit for a brief period.
I intend to use this time to champion children and young people, their families, and those who support their rights and dignity.
Ros Cornish AM
Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People