Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection Reform. Can the minister explain why the most recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows that children in South Australia receive child protection services at the lowest level of all the states in the nation and at just half the rate of the children in New South Wales?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:23): I'm not aware of the particular statistics to which the leader refers. If we are dealing with the sort of interstate comparisons that I regularly see in relation to other government performance, there is often some difference in the way in which measurements are taken in different places, but I am not familiar with the detail.

We, as a government, have acknowledged that we need to improve the child protection system in South Australia. We have had a royal commission about it. We are in the process of working our way through the recommendations that came to us from that royal commission. We are in the process of legislating to improve the position. We are in the process of drafting a new child protection bill. We accept that we have to do better in this area. There is no contest about that and we intend to do better.