Child Safety and Youth Justice workers across Queensland will walk off the job on Friday, taking their campaign directly to local MPs’ offices as they demand urgent action on the workforce pressures they say are leaving vulnerable children and young people without the support they need.
Together members will stop work for up to two and a half hours at more than 20 locations across the state and visit local MPs, with some taking air mattresses to their doors as a stark symbol of children being accommodated in Child Safety Service Centres when no safe placement can be found.
Stop-work events are planned in Brisbane, Ipswich, Caboolture, Redcliffe, Everton, Carindale, Kenmore, Logan, Beaudesert, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Mount Isa and Mareeba/Atherton, with further locations expected to be confirmed.
The escalation follows weeks of protected industrial action and stalled bargaining over a new Child Safety and Youth Justice Agreement.
Together said workers had repeatedly warned the Government that excessive caseloads, vacancies, unpaid additional hours and a lack of appropriate placements were placing unsustainable pressure on the child protection and youth justice systems.
“Workers have tried meetings. They’ve given evidence to a Commission of Inquiry. They’ve stood outside Parliament. They’ve taken protected action. Now they’re taking the reality of this system directly to the MPs who have the power to demand change,” Together Assistant Secretary Dee Spink said.
“These mattresses represent a reality no Queenslander should accept – children with nowhere appropriate to go and frontline workers staying into the early hours of the morning trying to find them somewhere safe.
“Workers don’t want to be walking off the job. They want to be supporting children and young people. But continuing to quietly hold this system together isn’t fixing it. For years, workers have absorbed the pressure themselves. This action is about making that pressure impossible to ignore.”
More than 100 Child Safety Officer positions remain vacant, while workers routinely report caseloads of 30 or more children against an agreed safe caseload of around 16. At least 60 essential Youth Justice positions also remain vacant.
The Government’s own figures show 2,819 children are living in residential care, up 25 per cent on 2025, including 107 children under five, while just one in four priority child protection assessments is being completed within statutory timeframes.
“We keep coming back to the same basic question: how much time does a Child Safety Officer actually have for each child?” Ms Spink said.
“When a worker is responsible for 30 children instead of 16, when experienced staff are leaving and vacancies can’t be filled, and when workers are staying back late because there is nowhere safe for a child to go, children pay the price.
“That’s why workers are taking this action. It is about whether Queensland properly resources the people and services responsible for keeping vulnerable children and young people safe.”
Protected industrial action has been underway since 3 August, with members escalating action after weeks of stalled bargaining.
The latest escalation also comes during Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm’s six-week leave, with responsibility for the portfolio split between two acting ministers. Together said there remained a lack of clarity over whether either acting minister had the authority to approve the changes needed to resolve the dispute, after Premier David Crisafulli rejected the union’s call for him to take responsibility for the portfolio during Minister Camm’s absence.
“Workers have been asking for months for somebody with the authority to fix these problems to act,” Ms Spink said.
“Now the Minister is on leave, responsibility has been split between two acting ministers and we still don’t have clarity about who has the authority to make the decisions needed to move this forward.
“That is not good enough for a child safety system already under enormous pressure. The mismanagement needs to stop.”
“Our members have given the Government every opportunity to act before reaching this point. Now workers are going to their local MPs because every MP should understand what is happening in the child protection and youth justice systems in their community.
“Every MP workers visit will hear the same message: take this back to your Government and find somebody with the authority to act.”
Together said further industrial action could still be avoided if the Government returned with an offer that addressed workloads, workforce attraction and retention, and the resources required to implement child safety reform.
“The Government has said it wants to fix child safety. Workers want exactly the same thing,” Ms Spink said.
“But the frontline must be supported. It has to mean manageable caseloads, enough experienced workers, appropriate placements for children and enough time for workers to properly support them.
“Children can’t keep waiting while responsibility is passed around and decisions are delayed.
“Somebody in this Government needs to take responsibility and make the decisions required to fix this. Until that happens, our members are prepared to keep escalating because children cannot keep carrying the consequences of a system that isn’t working.”
