Child Protection

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier stand by his comments made in the house on 6 August 2014? When the Premier was asked if he would consider separating the Department for Education from child protection, the Premier stated:

…the bringing together of the Department for Education and Child Development was a conscious step to bring together relevant education, health care, protection and child development services within one agency so that we could consider, rather than a series of disconnected services, the whole of our service system from the perspective of the child…I think it is a good approach, and it is something that I stand by.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:28): Yes, that vision remains the vision for our services in the child development area. Notwithstanding the decision today, in fact the commissioner is at pains to reinforce the importance of joined-up approaches across various agencies. It's absolutely—

Mr Marshall: You said one agency.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: That's right, and that needs to be achieved in that context. The one agency now has to—

Ms Chapman: It was a conscious step to bring them together.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Yes, it was a conscious step.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader and leader are on two warnings.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: That vision to work across a range of agencies, whether it is social housing, whether it is disability services, whether it is family support services or Aboriginal-specific services, or indeed the mainstream services of health and education, they have to be joined up to deal with those families that find themselves in crisis. The truth is that we have child protection notifications for one in four children by the time they reach 18.

It is not possible for a statutory child protection response to occur in respect of each of those children, and it would be wrong if that were to happen, so we do need an agency, we do need a child protection response, which is confined to those children at real risk of harm, but for those families who need additional support we need to bring in those services around them.

I had a different view about how that was best achieved. I thought we should put the child protection agency within one of those mainstream agencies. That hasn't worked, but the agenda needs to be delivered because there is no other way of keeping children safe and dealing with those children who find themselves having suboptimal child development because they are in families facing poverty or some other difficulty.

But we also need to make sure that we assertively remove those children at real risk of harm who can get lost in a child protection system that gets swamped with so many other notifications. So, that's the public policy challenge. The approach we have taken hasn't worked. We now have a recommendation—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —of a different way of doing things, and we have accepted that recommendation. Structures themselves, as the royal commissioner has told us in this recommendation, won't be enough, but it is a necessary precondition that we do have a fresh start so that when we do get the recommendations that will be handed down in a few months' time we can act on them quickly and effectively and change the culture of this agency. That is what we are committed to and that is what we will deliver.

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is called to order. The member for Light.