Question Time

Child Protection

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (14:41): My question is to the minister for child protection. Can the minister update the house on her attempts to contact the father of the two-year-old girl who came into contact with the Families SA worker accused of alleged child sex abuse?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:41): I thank the member for Adelaide for her question. The department has undertaken a number of initiatives to attempt to contact this particular father, but can I make it very clear from the outset that this child is not under any sort of guardianship order, that the child is with its birth father and we essentially have no control over the father, no reason to have any control over the father and no indication that the child is not being well cared for.

We have sourced telephone numbers and they have been unsuccessful. We have sourced an address, I think, through Centrelink and that was unsuccessful. We sought an address through Medicare and that mail has been returned as well, so the department is looking at other avenues it may be able to pursue to locate that particular father.