Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:38): Supplementary: does the Premier take personal responsibility for the failure of his government to keep our most vulnerable children safe?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:38): Of course I accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for all the public policy measures that have been put in place that have been not successful, but this is incredibly difficult work. With the best will in the world, we have applied our resources, we have applied our policy and we have put in place the measures that we believe are necessary to protect children, but in some cases it's demonstrably the case that we have been unable to protect those children, just as their families have been unable to protect them. The state has tried to protect them in some circumstances, and in many cases we have been able to protect those children.

There are literally thousands of children who have been removed from their families and put in the care of foster-parents, and those foster-parents have brought those children up in beautiful loving homes, and they have created a new life for those children. Sadly, there are also other children who have been so damaged that they have been unable to make those connections. They have bounced from one placement to another and, sadly, in some cases ended up in commercial care. And in some cases again, they have been preyed upon.

That's nothing to be proud of and we are all devastated about that, and we are all doing everything we possibly can, including through the provision of the resources that we have applied today and the policy changes that we've applied today, to try to make sure that this, as far as possible, can be prevented in the future.