Grandparents for Grandchildren SA

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (15:24): I rise today to draw the house's attention to the plight of Grandparents for Grandchildren. This is an organisation that advocates for and supports grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren for a range of different reasons. Obviously, their parents are unable to care for them, so of course grandparents have stepped in to try to care for those children and bring them up in the absence of their parents, sometimes permanently and sometimes temporarily.

On Tuesday, this organisation, Grandparents for Grandchildren, was told it will not get any more funding. It has been funded by the Labor government for about the last 10 years, sometimes on a three-year basis and sometimes on an annual basis. Make no mistake: what this decision means is that this organisation has to close. They have about 18 volunteer staff plus one paid CEO. The money that they were getting from the then Labor government each year (about $117,500) pays for the rent, pays for keeping the lights and pays for the phone bills. Unfortunately, one of the first acts of the new Minister for Child Protection has been to cut their funding and basically sign the end of this organisation.

Of course, the strange thing is that it is a very small amount of money that could actually keep this organisation afloat. Like I said, it is only about $117,000, which is not very much in the scheme of the much broader child protection budget and, of course, the overall budget. We were all here late last night and will continue today talking about the $6.6 billion Supply Bill. Surely about $120,000 could be found for Grandparents for Grandchildren and the great work they do. Not only is it a small amount but it is a small amount that generates huge savings and huge results for the community.

Think about investing $120,000, but then think about what it means to have about 12,000 of their clients (grandparents and grandchildren) going back into the state system and relying on the state system. If those children had to go into state care or if those grandparents had to seek advice from the government, there would be a lot more budgetary pressure than just $120,000-odd. I would say that this organisation delivers huge savings to the Department for Child Protection and the government overall, and it deserves that $120,000; it is very good value for money.

It also means much better outcomes for children. Obviously, children who are cared for by family members will have better results than those who are in and out of state care. Even the very best state care is not the same as having your family there. Obviously, I am speaking from my past experience a little here as well. As a reporter, I spent a lot of time covering child protection issues. The best part of the 15 years of my career as a reporter was spent with victims of crime, victims of child sex abuse and children who were and still are in state care, so the experiences that people go through in that system are very real to me.

Of course, I am also drawing on the experience I have had in the last few weeks since becoming the shadow minister for child protection, meeting with scores of NGOs in this space. I thank all of them for meeting with me and discussing very honestly the concerns that they have. But I am also speaking from personal experience. Members may or may not have heard my maiden speech earlier in the week. I talked in that speech about my experience of being brought up for a period by my grandparents.

I count myself really, really lucky that I had grandparents to be able to look after me. My parents were not in a position to look after me and two of my sisters for a little while and we went right across the nation to go and live with my grandparents. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for looking after me and my sisters and, without them, I certainly would not be standing here. I know that not every child grows up in comfort and security, and the lucky ones like me have grandparents who can look after them. Others, obviously, have a much tougher time in the state care system.

Several of my colleagues also had a difficult time when they were kids, and they have benefited from the love and care of their grandparents. So I know the value that Grandparents for Grandchildren provides, the support they provide to grandparents, whether that is legal advice or accompanying them to court when there are court cases on, helping them to navigate a complex system. That advice is incredibly valuable for those grandparents but also for our state as a whole for the smooth running of our justice system and the smooth running of our child protection system. I urge the minister to meet with Grandparents for Grandchildren and, of course, to find the funding for this very worthy organisation.