Question Time

Child Protection, Rice Inquiry

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:11): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. How can you continue as a minister after the review by Paul Rice QC into your department, which specifically identified your significant failure, and with your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms HILDYARD: The Rice review states, quote:

It was crucial for the Minister to tell the Department that she wanted to know about the serious sexual abuse of children under guardianship. This was a significant failure on the Minister's part.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:11): Mr Speaker, as you would be more than aware, the decision regarding who is in cabinet and who is not in cabinet is actually, on our side of the house, the responsibility of the leader of the parliamentary team, and at this point in time that is me, has been me—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —for eight years—a very stable leadership. Can I make it very clear, sir, that the minister enjoys my full confidence, as does the chief executive of this department, the Department for Child Protection.

We have moved very swiftly as a government in response to the issue regarding the failure within the department to progress information captured in that department through the ranks to the deputy chief executive, the chief executive, and ultimately to the minister. In fact, it was the Attorney-General who late last year appointed His Honour Paul Rice QC to conduct an inquiry into the situation within the department, and we received that report last week.

We very gratefully received that report. It was done in quick time. I think it was a very thorough report, which found that there were opportunities to significantly improve the reporting within that department. There were six recommendations. We have accepted all those recommendations. In fact, we have gone further than just accepting those recommendations: we will establish a significant incident reporting unit within the department, which will be headed by a nominee from the Crown Solicitor's Office.

It will be a very important role, making sure that all the critical incident reporting is done in that department, and in fact that person will actually report to the chief executive of my department, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

We are taking this matter extraordinarily seriously. I do want to acknowledge that this is a particularly difficult area of public policy. I think that there have been some very significant improvements made in this department—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —over the last three years. A huge amount of work has been done. Previous inquiries have found—

Ms Stinson: That's why you should get someone who's up to the task.

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Badcoe!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that in fact this was a department in crisis. That was what was found in recent reports when the previous government were on the Treasury benches. There was no such finding in this report given by Paul Rice QC, but there were significant opportunities for improving the critical incident reporting and that is why we are acting very swiftly and very transparently. We were very, very quick to commission that review, get that review, consider that review—

Mr Picton: Spin, spin, spin.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —table that report with very limited redaction in the parliament this morning and, most importantly, put an immediate action plan in place. I have every confidence that the minister, the chief executive and that department will be able to adequately respond to those recommendations, those suggestions, as a matter of urgency and we will make sure that the cabinet remains focussed on this issue and that the resources will be provided to make sure that that occurs.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Reynell, I call to order the member for West Torrens, I call to order the member for Kaurna, I call to order the member for Playford and I call to order and warn the member for Badcoe. The member for Reynell.