Safeguarding Taskforce

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (14:52): My question is to the Premier. Since the shocking death of Ann Marie Smith, has the Premier asked to be alerted to any such cases where there have been deaths of vulnerable South Australians either in state care or receiving services in the community?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:52): What I have done since that shocking news came to light was listen to people who have lived experience, those people who are living with a disability, their families, the people who provide care to them and people within state government services. What we learned from those people is that there are gaps in terms of the safeguarding provided to some of our most vulnerable people in South Australia, gaps that have existed for too long. That's why we acted very quickly to establish the Safeguarding Taskforce in South Australia.

This has only been in operation for weeks, and they have already presented to the government on Monday afternoon their interim report. We have received that. We have thanked them for their early work. We look forward to them providing the government with their final report by the end of July. In their interim report, they identified 12 key safeguarding gaps and they made five recommendations. This is an issue. This is an area of government that we are taking extraordinarily seriously. We thank Kelly Vincent and Dr David Caudrey for the work that they are doing chairing this committee, and we look forward to providing a response to the final report when it is received in late July.