Children in State Care

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. Does the minister agree with the Guardian for Children and Young People in her annual report that children removed from their families into state care right now are still not actually safe and that amounts to a crisis and a betrayal?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order: if the member for Badcoe is seeking to quote from the annual report, as it seems that she was suggesting to do, she should seek leave of the house.

The SPEAKER: A point of order on the point of order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sir, the annual report was tabled in this parliament yesterday, so it is not an introduction of facts. The facts are before the house.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. I am going to allow the minister an opportunity to respond.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (14:40): I thank the member for the question. We know that children are removed from very dangerous situations. They are not removed lightly. In fact, the major three causes for why children are removed are drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and mental health. We know that under the former government many of those children were left in chronic neglect situations for many years and have irrecoverable damage. These children are removed at the will of a court.

We put forward a case based on reports to a Child Abuse Report Line, and it is the Youth Court that determines whether that child should be removed. I will not apologise for removing children from danger. It is our role to protect children. Bear in mind, and the guardian has noted herself, these are children—

Mr Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned a second time.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: —that have multiple and complex trauma in their history. These are not children who came from a happy family who are coming into residential care on a holiday. These are children with complex behaviours who quite likely have experienced things that none of us here would ever like to care to read about.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Light!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: We are dealing with difficult situations. These children aren't going to come into care and suddenly have perfect behaviours and not interact with each other.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: We know that children are better off in family-based care, so we have had a focus on recruiting foster carers. In fact, in the 2018-19 year we achieved my goal of a 50 net increase in families. We also for the first time ever, last quarter, had growth in our numbers of foster carers in every single foster care agency in South Australia. We are doing amazing work with the non-government organisations to get children into family-based care because we know it is safe there, it is better for them there and there are better outcomes.

We have also made significant improvements on family scoping. Despite the numbers of children coming into care continuing to increase, more children are now in family-based care than there were last year and the year before, so we are making significant progress. There is a lot more work to be done and we need more families. If there is anyone listening or watching today: 1300 2 FOSTER.

We need more families so that we can reduce our reliance on residential care because, as is acknowledged widely by the guardian, by commissioners, by everyone, when you put children from traumatised backgrounds with complex behaviours together in residential care there is the likelihood of bad behaviours, so the goal is to reduce our reliance on residential care. We have capped the numbers. We are not at full capacity. We have already closed one, as I have said. We are looking at better models, new models, world's best practice of therapeutic residential care so that we can improve the safety of all children in our care.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Badcoe and then the member for Florey, the following members are called to order: the deputy leader is warned, the member for Hurtle Vale, the member for Badcoe is warned, and the member for MacKillop is called to order.