Children's Protection Law Reform (Transitional Arrangements and Related Amendments) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:59): The issue relating to part 9 again identifies the significance of having some response from the commissioner for children, in particular in respect of her obligation to file her annual report. I look forward to receiving it in the next five sitting days. The other matter related to the Criminal Law Consolidation Act and amendments are there in part 12 and appear to be in order. They are to deal with unlawful sexual intercourse, persistent sexual exploitation, consent being no defence in certain cases and procuring a child to commit an indecent act. I expect the incorporation of foster-parents there to appropriately deal with the defect.

Other amendments largely claim to be consequential, and they are matters we are currently investigating. There is provision under part 15 of the Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) Act 2009 to maintain the principle of where the priority is to lie with the inconsistency between the Family Law Act and state child protection orders and of course the prevailing of the intervention order. Of course, at times a judge may be called in to deal with the consequences of any conflict.

They all appear to be quite within the reasonable remit of amendments consequential to legislation, but let us be under no illusion here: we need to have the principal acts actually operating. That is the priority of the opposition and it is almost insulting to come in and say, 'We demand to have urgent attention to transitional matters and extra amendments,' when in fact the principal acts have been frozen into inaction. That is completely unacceptable. With that, my colleague the shadow minister for child protection wishes to make a contribution.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (18:02): I also would like to make a few quick comments regarding the Children's Protection Law Reform (Transitional Arrangements and Related Amendments) Bill of 2017. This bill affects the Child Safety (Prohibited Persons) Act of 2016, the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act of 2016 and the more recent Children and Young People (Safety) Act of 2017.

The member for Playford talks about fixing up a mess. These are three bills that are already enacted that clearly cannot work without this transitional bill. I find it very disappointing and annoying that we only received this bill late yesterday. Unlike the surrogacy bill, which has actually been listed and worked on for years, from what I know, this is really just presented at the last minute. I have not had a briefing. The briefing to our shadow attorney-general was after our joint party met, so our joint party has also not been able to have a full briefing, so any amendments or any changes will have to be dealt with in the upper house.

This bill is of great interest to me. Not being a lawyer, being given 44 pages of legislation the night before is really not enough time. However, I did ring a couple of key stakeholders I thought must have been involved in the process and neither of them were, so I am unsure who was consulted and whether people actually know the effects of this. I believe it is really about fixing up and enabling legislation that has already been presented, so I am not going to stop that at all from going ahead.

However, I note that for years there has been a series of issues with the working with children checks and police checks. It has been all over Leon Byner for years and years. The department has been unable to get these done in an adequate time. It has been a completely flawed process, and it looks like even their updated version is not capable of fixing the problems and we now have to have transitional arrangements in place.

I have had constituents contact me regarding name changes. I thought that would have been a separate bill, which I have been looking out for, but it has been included in this generic bill that covers many, many things, and that is the amendments to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act. I am in favour of that on behalf of one of my constituents, who has for years been advocating on behalf of her granddaughter, who is under her care and the guardianship of the minister.

The granddaughter has been in her care since a very young child and she has five of her siblings. There is one child who has what you could deem maybe as a joke name the mother made up, which has no reference to either the birth mother or the father. This grandmother has for quite some time been trying to get it changed, and I am told that this legislation will enable that, so I am very supportive of that. Hopefully, this will fix up a few issues, and with more time, when it goes to the upper house, if there are any amendments I will get them put through there.

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) (18:05): I thank the contributors to the debate. For the member for Adelaide's benefit, predominantly this bill is about purely mechanical, technical arrangements consequent upon the other bill having passed in July. One has to follow the other and not the other way around because until we have done the main bill we cannot do the transitional arrangements because we do not know what the main bill will finally look like.

Most of the bill is of that nature. There are, as the deputy leader pointed out, a couple of discrete elements in there that are different things, for example, the name change. I perfectly understand that members of the opposition would like to have an opportunity to reflect on those matters, in particular, between now and next week or whenever it is dealt with in the other place, and that is fine. I place on the record my preparedness to facilitate briefings for whomever may require them in the hope that this can be passed in the next week of sitting, or even earlier if possible, so that we can let the necessary works get on with being done.

The only thing I will mention briefly also is that the deputy leader mentioned in the course of her lengthy contribution—although not as lengthy as sometimes, so let's call it a moderately lengthy contribution—that she was 'choking with indignation', I think were her words, because this was not done last year. As much as I do not like to see any other human suffer, I can relieve that choking indignation feeling to some degree because it actually passed this year in July. To the extent that the—

Ms Chapman: It was suspended last year; that is what I said.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Okay, to the extent that last year was the relevant time, I would like to relieve the symptoms somewhat by just pointing out that a lot happened this year. Never mind, the point is that there is a positive feeling in the air. I am picking it up and it is a welcome feeling. I think it is called a frisson, although I do not speak a foreign language, so I do not know what I just said, but never mind. Whatever it is, there is that feeling and it is positive. I am ready, willing and able to provide further information to anybody who requires it, and I thank everybody for their excellent cooperation in allowing this matter to proceed.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

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) (18:08): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.