STATUTES AMENDMENT (CHILDREN'S PROTECTION) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 4265.)

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (15:38): I am pleased to recommence my contribution on what is an important piece of legislation. Just prior to the luncheon break I indicated that I am certainly more than prepared to support the legislation, in line with the comments of the shadow attorney-general, the member for Bragg.

I will just provide the house with some background in relation to the bill. Under the current law, it is an offence to unlawfully take a child from his or her placement or to harbour or conceal a child. Children who abscond rarely are willing to give evidence against the person who provides them with refuge. It is also an offence to abduct a child under 16, but this requires proof that the child was taken. Again, this requires proof of force or fraud and requires a child to report and give evidence. That is a basic outline of the current law.

The proposals within the bill offer three new mechanisms: first, the child protection restraining order; secondly, the direction not to harbour, conceal or communicate with the child; and, thirdly, an offence of harbouring or concealing a child. I will direct my contribution to the first mechanism that I highlighted, that is, the child protection restraining order, which restrains an adult person from having contact with a child under 17 years.

The court must be satisfied that the child will be exposed to sexual abuse or drug offending. It can apply when, first, the adult has within the preceding 10 years been convicted of a prescribed offence, that is, rape, indecent assault, incest, gross indecency, child prostitution; secondly, the child is or has been subject to a child protection restraining order; thirdly, as a consequence of the child's contact or residence, the child is at risk of sexual abuse or drug offending; and, fourthly, making of the orders appropriate in the circumstances.

I highlight the third point; that is, as a consequence of the child's contact or residence, the child is at risk of sexual abuse or drug offending. In my time as the member for Kavel, I have had some real life experience in terms of a constituent speaking to me about this issue. The circumstances were that this lady spoke to me about her 15 year old daughter who had, it could be described as, taken up with a 20 year old adult male. She had left home and was living with this adult male. The mother was powerless to do anything about that relationship. We went to the police. They called around and interviewed the 15 year old girl. They interviewed the male. There was denial of any sexual relationship; however, that was highly contested.

At that stage, I wrote to the then minister for families and communities, and I have to say I received what you could regard as a pathetic response. I do not have a copy of the correspondence with me, but I have—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You should you have; you have had about two hours' notice.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I have highlighted this issue in the house previously, Attorney-General. I have quoted the contents of that letter in the house previously. One sentence was along these lines: we have to be mindful that this girl is in a transitional phase of her life, transitioning from young teenagehood to older teenagehood, if you like. As a 15 year old girl, obviously she had four years left of her teenage years. The minister's response, obviously on advice from the department, was inadequate and really pathetic. I am glad to see that the government is looking to change that. It is not before time, to be totally honest.

The government has had eight years and, no doubt, I would not be the only member in this house to raise issues such as this with the minister. The government has had ample time and at the eleventh hour, before we finish sitting for the year and running up to an election, it has decided to introduce the bill; so the Attorney-General cannot gloat that he is doing an outstanding job in introducing the bill to the house now. Those points need to be made.

In relation to this example, I went to the minister and we got a pathetic, limp-wristed response. It was actually humiliating and galling for the mother to receive information that she could avail herself of counselling. Her 15 year old daughter was shacked up with a 20 year old no-hoper and all that the government at the time could offer was counselling. I think the mother needed more than counselling. She needed some legislative power to be able to extract her daughter from that situation and force her not to continue living in that manner.

There was a good ending, I must say, given the fact that the mother did not give up. Her love for her daughter endured. Her efforts were tireless in trying to convince her daughter that her life had taken an extremely inappropriate and wrong direction and finally, as a result of continued contact with her daughter and talking to her, showing her support and love, the daughter did eventually realise that her life at that stage was going nowhere fast—going nowhere at all—with this no-hoper and his brother who was living in the flat sponging off the daughter. This lass left school at the age of 15 and took on a part-time job in the local supermarket, and these two characters were sponging off the meagre wages she generated on a fairly low pay structure working in the local supermarket. I am glad that the government has seen fit—not before time—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I will not be generous at all. There is no need to be generous because the government has had plenty time of time to address this matter—and it has not done so until now.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: We are not opposing it: we are supporting it.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I have a reasonable record in this place of giving credit where credit is due. On numerous occasions I have congratulated the government on whatever initiative it might have taken, but on this occasion—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Probably the last speech I made actually, if you look back through the Hansard.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Last sitting week.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: It was on the Fire and Emergency Services (Review) Amendment Bill, if my memory serves me correctly, so I encourage the Attorney-General to read the Hansard. I can remember what I have talked about—which is perhaps different from the Attorney-General remembering what he may have said at certain stages of his political career.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I am outstanding at that.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, we'll see. I understand that when issues are raised you use copious notes to remind you of your previous comments.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I am about to become the longest serving Attorney-General in this state.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, look who is gloating now, for goodness sake. Mr Speaker, that mother was put through an enormous amount of stress and grief. She would contact me, and I would see her any time that she wanted to make an appointment, and we were working through the issue. I have to commend the efforts of the local police. They would go around and try to put the fear of God into these two creeps who were really pooling on this young lass, and—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What? What's the verb?

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Pooling.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Pooling?

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes. As I said, there was a good outcome. The girl realised that the direction their life had taken was not at all beneficial to her future, and she ended the relationship and moved back with her mother. From all accounts, she went back to school and is leading a very positive and fruitful life. That is a good news story. I like to highlight good news stories in the house, and that is an example of just that.

As I said, there are some other key areas in relation to the bill, for example, the direction not to harbour, conceal or communicate with a child, and there is an offence for doing so. I do not need to expand on any other aspects of the bill. The shadow attorney-general, in her usual manner, has done an outstanding job in her contribution to the house in relation to the legislation. As I indicated earlier, I am more than happy to support the legislation.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:52): I thank honourable members for their contribution to the debate. The bill uses new methods of civil restraint to prevent the exploitation of runaway children. It sets up a system of administrative direction and criminal offences to prevent people preying on vulnerable children who are in state care. In doing so, the bill repeals provisions that are ineffective because they rely on proof of inducement and on the evidence of the exploitative child.

The opposition wishes that we had legislated for a last resort therapeutic detention for these vulnerable children. To illustrate the plight of these children and the dilemmas they pose to authorities and to highlight the problems around the member for Bragg's proposed therapeutic detention, I would like to read the words of a witness to the Mullighan Inquiry into Children in State Care. At a public hearing in Adelaide on 28 September 2005, Commissioner Mullighan asked for a comment on the option of placing runaway children in forcible, albeit therapeutic, detention. The commentators were mainly senior social workers with experience of working with these children. One of them was Karen Harvey, representing Anglicare South Australia. I quote from her evidence:

From our experience we're suggesting that young people that choose to live in risky situations do so for many complex reasons. A common theme seems to be that the young person has in their younger childhood been subject to all sorts of abuse by another perpetrator. Although we acknowledge that it is not and should not be assumed to always be the case, the abuse appears to make the young person particularly vulnerable to the skilled and manipulative approaches used by abusive adults or other people. That's during the young person's adolescence.

Another factor for the young person might be the absence of safe, flexible and acceptable housing for the young person. Sometimes, when this housing is unavailable, the young person makes a choice between living with an older person who places them at risk and of course they don't have access to suitable housing. In other words, they are presented with no reasonable choice at all.

We work with young people who have lived with an older adult in abusive relationships. In most of the incidences they have ended those relationships usually after a period of several months, so the young person has often—with the assistance of professionals—then come to the understanding that their relationship is not in their best interest and usually either at that time or some later date, they've categorised the relationship as abusive or exploitative and often may seek legal redress.

Our experience with young people who live at risk suggests that the majority are, for at least a short period of time, utterly convinced that they want this relationship more than any other. While they are so convinced, the form of detention that would be successful in the short term is a facility which prevented young people having any unsupervised movement for 24 hours seven days a week.

That is the therapeutic detention that the member for Bragg is proposing. I return to the quote:

Such a restriction of freedom and civil liberties is clearly a very serious step that requires significant debate and discussion.

Anglicare suggests that it would seem that any proposal to detain young people forcibly in these situations has a number of very significant risks for young people. Forcible detention may create long-term mental health problems. Forcible detention for young people with existing mental health problems has the significant risk of creating additional diagnosed mental health problems.

Forcible detention comes with it a social and psychological stigma. Forcible detention places young people in close proximity to other young people with similar profiles, which presents a high risk of perpetration and abuse to and from each other—

Ms Chapman: Especially at Magill.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Bragg interjects again, not wanting the Gang of 49 to go into youth detention. She obviously regards it as a breach of their human rights

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: How terrible that the Gang of 49 should be put at risk by being stuck out at Magill, says the member for Bragg. Well, she can be responsible for her own views on this. I am happy where she is, and I am happy where I am on the Gang of 49. But, to return to the quote from the Anglicare social worker:

and that forcible detention will prevent the young person from making a choice to leave the abusive relationship voluntarily, which places them at a very high risk of returning to the paedophile, the abusive person or connecting with another person or abusive person after their release from detention.

It is these children whom the child protection restraining order provisions seek to protect. They are vulnerable children with complicated needs, some running away from home, others from care. These children have not committed any crime, nor do they have a mental illness that necessitates detention for treatment.

There is ample evidence that detaining wayward children has not worked in the past. That is distinct from detaining criminal children, whom the member for Bragg would not have us detain because, according to the member for Flinders, it is a violation of their human rights, and that is on the Hansard record now. The government recognises that forcibly detaining these children is not the answer.

Ms Chapman: You're doing it: you're putting them in Magill.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: No; I refer to detaining wayward children, as distinct from the Gang of 49. We have focused instead on separating the exploitative adult from the child by means of a child protection restraining order directed at that adult. I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.