Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): Can the minister inform the house, now that she has had the question in the parliament several weeks ago which asked how many additional Families SA staff had been recruited, what the net increase is in the Families SA staff after recruitment as part of this program?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:27): No, I don't have those figures with me but I think what is important is that we have—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I think what is important is that we have a certain staffing complement that we are able to employ to. We do struggle with retention and we also struggle to make sure that we are getting the right calibre of staff, given that we are trying to do a big recruitment drive in a relatively small state. However, we have been very successful in bringing on more and more workers, both youth workers and social workers and, indeed, also some administrative workers. That is being done diligently and successfully and, as I say, we are closing around the 100 vacancy gap out of 1,900.