House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1) 52 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Grievance Debate Children in State Care CHILDREN IN STATE CARE Ms CHAPMAN House of Assembly Bragg Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:45): Why are some children worth $6,000 and others worth $300,000? That is the question I pose to the Minister for Families and Communities. The minister is responsible for children who have parents or guardians who are unable or unwilling to care for their children, and they are placed under the guardianship of the minister. Essentially, that means that they are placed under the direct responsibility of the government to look after and provide for these children. Although the minister now says we do not have children in motels in emergency care any more, we only have them in serviced apartments, as though there is really some big difference to that, it would not have escaped the attention of some members that in this year's budget the cost for accommodating children in what we call motel-like accommodation the minister has budgeted $27 million to provide for children. If one reads the Guardian of Children and Young People's annual report, you will see that sometimes between 80 and 100 children a year are in this category. A couple of years ago that was on average about $270,000 per child on current estimates of what is likely to be an increase, we are told by the minister, for this year for children who have to stay in motel-like accommodation, sometimes for months and months at a time; on average it is something closer to $300,000 per year. If we are on current tracking rates, that could be as high as half a million dollars per child in care. Clearly, these children have been sometimes abused, abandoned, they are in very vulnerable situations, they have come from very fractured environments, and they need absolute care. Whilst it is important to maintain motel accommodation for emergency situations, it is unconscionable to me that the government can continue to throw millions of dollars providing emergency care when they could buy motels for that price and go into the accommodation business themselves, but, nevertheless, they insist on doing this. This will not be so callous or insensitive to the needs of those children if it were not to compare with what happens to children in the country. Let me give you one example. Mrs B, as I will describe her for the purposes protecting of her children, who has authorised me to raise this issue in the parliament, is a senior-aged person who lives in Ceduna on the West Coast. Last year, she and her husband took responsibility for their five grandchildren, who are all now at school. Some of them had come to her with very high needs and health issues. After they had spent their own retirement savings to take action to protect these children and seek custody of them without any help from the apartment, ultimately what happened was that the natural mother apparently had attempted suicide, the children were put at risk, and there was a situation where the department then came to the grandparents, amazingly, and said, 'We want you to take them.' Of course they were willing to take them, but they only had very tiny accommodation. The department said. 'Well, we'll help you buy the materials to line your shed so that we can provide a house for these children.' They provided the materials, that is true. The family built all the lining of the shed, and they provided them with immediate accommodation. Obviously that was not at a standard that was good enough, and everyone would expect that children should not be living in that environment, that they needed to acquire a home. They searched the state. Mrs B locates a $180,000 transportable home with all costs included, which means that they can bring it to Ceduna to house these children. In addition to that, they paid for the furniture and all the things they need. They go to department and ask for $30,000 contribution—that is the equivalent of $6,000 per child—to provide for these children. Ultimately, after months and months of negotiating to get this, they get the money, but it is on the basis that they get nothing for the car, which they need to make sure the children get around and get to school; so they are now left with a car debt. They have used their savings to build this home for their children. They are committed to providing for their grandchildren, and they will keep doing that, but it is a scandalous, callous disregard for the children who are out there out of sight of the minister, who does not give a toss about these children. It is quite unacceptable that this government throws up a report to us, through the budget, to say it is prepared to spend $27 million on hotel accommodation, hotel-like accommodation, for children who are in these circumstances in the city. That is nearly $300,000 per child, and yet they leave their children out in a lined shed. When eventually the grandparents got together the money for the children to have a home, they had this appalling lack of commitment from the government because they are out of sight and out of mind. Well, I will keep speaking about this matter until the government does something about it. The minister has been written to; she has obviously ignored it. There have been pleas put on behalf of the fabulous new member for Flinders, who has taken up the cause of this case. We will keep fighting this. We will keep exposing this complete disregard for these children. Time expired.