Victoria's Minister for Youth Justice, Natalie Hutchins, says she cannot guarantee an end to assaults on staff and young people at the troubled Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre.
But she maintains that the situation at the facility is improving.
Ms Hutchins told the ABC she was saddened to hear the stories of former youth justice workers who said Malmsbury was unsafe for staff and young people.
Some expressed fears that a staff member or inmate would die at the centre.
"I felt sad for them and I felt disappointed," Ms Hutchins said.
"That's why I'm really committed to trying to turn that around by implementing a new workforce plan, by having safer facilities and having some permanency where we can deliver better training to the people we've got in place."
Minister pledges to 'get on top' of issues
Ms Hutchins said assaults had dropped significantly in recent years, but she could not guarantee there would be an end to assaults on staff.
"Of course I can't guarantee that things won't continue to happen because we have some young people that are in pretty dire straits in terms of their mental wellbeing, in terms of their offending. They're the things that we need to keep working on and turning around," she said.
"We will get on top of these issues."
Victoria's Opposition Leader Matthew Guy blamed a lack of leadership, and said the Andrews government had been "too soft" in its handling of youth justice.
"There has been a soft touch and staff have been assaulted, we raised that issue four years ago," he said.
"There wasn't any mechanism to manage the people who had perpetrated those issues … and there still isn't."
Former Youth Justice staff and the Community and Public Sector Union say the churn of staff through the centre has contributed to a lack of experienced workers and a shortage of consistent care for young people.
"We have seen, over the years, many people leave that should've been given more support, and once they were out of the system I think we were focusing on the members who were still working," the CPSU's Julian Kennelly said.
Natalie Hutchins took on the youth justice portfolio in June 2020.
She said since then, the Department of Justice had halved the attrition rate of youth justice staff.
Data from the Crime Statistics Agency reveals police have been called in relation to 628 assaults at the facility since 2016.
WorkSafe investigated 91 assaults on staff at the centre over the same period.
Justice Department records released to the ABC under Freedom of Information reveal there were 97 staff injuries reported to police in this time, 22 of them involving concussions or fractures.
