Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): Supplementary: does the minister support splitting child protection from the education department?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:30): The decision to—

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel is warned for sighing.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The decision about the way in which the disposition of the machinery of government occurs is a matter for me and it is a decision that we have taken advisedly. It is, in our view, the best practice to have the care and protection and the healthy development of children and their learning trajectory dealt with in one agency. If there is one lesson to be learnt from any of the events—

Mr Pisoni: Is that it doesn't work.

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: If there is one lesson to be learnt from any of the experiences around the world, around the nation, and indeed in our own state, about child protection and the links more generally with the welfare and health of children, it is that agencies need to collaborate and work more closely together and so we have always taken the view that that is most sensibly done within one agency. Now, I know that it is fashionable for those opposite to play politics with the questions of child sexual abuse and the questions of—

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order: that is clearly debate. The question was very simply: does the minister agree with the splitting of the department?

The SPEAKER: I am sure the Premier will address himself to the substance of the question very shortly, but it is the opposition's policy to split the departments and so naturally the Premier will have some leeway to comment, compare and contrast the two positions.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It is relevant I think to talk about some of the more celebrated cases recently which have tended to focus on questions of child sexual abuse and those awful matters that have occurred because it is from that point that the opposition's opportunistic policy springs and it is no doubt—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Let's be really clear about this.

Mr Marshall: You won't even let the minister answer the question and give us her opinion.

The SPEAKER: The leader is warned for the second and final time. I like to give the leader lots of leeway, but he will not shout over the minister answering.

Ms REDMOND: Point of order: I put it to you that it is debate nevertheless in terms of compare and contrast to call the opposition's policies opportunistic.

The SPEAKER: If you can't stand being called opportunistic, you have fairly thin skin regarding question time.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It is an important point because I know these matters do attract an enormous amount of attention in the media, and they do so rightfully I think because they are horrible things and they interest the community and it is proper that there is debate about them.

But one also needs to remember that the overwhelming number of cases that concern the protection of children are actually about matters that go to questions of neglect and poor parenting and all of the things that are best dealt with in the context of our mainstream services and systems. So the precise platform that you want to reach these families and get them to be better parents, to reach out with them and make sure you do connect up the healthcare services, the education services, the disability services, and the family support services that sit within this agency, is the education and universal platform for that purpose.

If you compartmentalise these things and take them off into a child safety silo, you always get the approach that we have seen in other jurisdictions which demonstrates that families have the ruler run over them for the purposes of seeing whether they actually are able to care for their children, and then you get into the paradigm of removal of children from families in circumstances where we should be focusing on supporting those families to actually care for those children.

Of course we need a clear-sighted view about removing those children who are at great risk as soon as we can, but the overwhelming majority of the work of these agencies is about strengthening families. We cannot let these few horrible cases completely throw us off balance to the adverse interest of our children in our systems. That is why we have taken this decision. This is a difficult debate, and we await the Coroner's inquiry, and, indeed the royal commission, before we make judgements about these matters.