Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:44): Given that the Premier described the alleged crimes committed by the 32-year-old Families SA employee as unprecedented in possibly South Australia's or the nation's history, why did the minister accept a verbal briefing on this shocking crime rather than request all departmental files and records related to the matter for herself to peruse?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:45): We have outlined the time frame in relation to this. From the first advice we received around the arrest of this man we were required to keep this matter extremely confidential, so that very few people knew about this arrest. The police were conducting a very, very sensitive investigation. It was not until the week before, the Wednesday before, our announcement that we were advised that the offending involved contact with children.

We were still being governed by SA Police in relation to their readiness to contact the affected families. So again, people in the department were not made aware of this arrest so we never had the same resources that we would normally access in preparing written briefings. But, again, I stress that I had received multiple written and oral briefings.