Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): Can the minister outline to the house what the target staffing for this agency is and what the current staffing is? What is the difference between the two?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:28): As I thought I was explaining but perhaps not sufficiently clearly, we have a staffing complement FTE cap of 1,900 staff and we are around 100 off that at present. That is not an unusual gap.

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is warned.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: We are around 100 off the 1,900 at present. I was unable to give a precise answer a couple of weeks ago because positions come and go all the time and I do not want to give an exact number, but it is in the order of around 100—which is not an unusual vacancy gap. Nonetheless, we are working to close the gap still further.