Child Protection Department Staffing

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:14): Supplementary question to the Minister for Child Protection: why is the minister able to avail the house of information regarding job vacancies from three years ago but can't furnish the house with information regarding job vacancies today?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (14:14): The Leader of the Opposition, it is good of you to bring up the 279 vacancies that were held under the former Labor government for several years and—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: —I would be very interested—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Badcoe!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: —to know if the Leader of the Opposition could tell me every vacancy and in which office when they were in government, because I bet that he couldn't.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: What I can say is that we have more people employed in the Department for Child Protection than ever before. The former Labor government have no credibility in this area. As I have already stated, we have 244 extra social workers across the state and an extra 53 case managers across the state.

The Hon. D.G. Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister for Innovation and Skills!

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: That is almost 300 extra frontline workers—more—than under the former government and, as I said, more workers than ever before. The vacancy rate is below 60. So, yes, I do know the number; however, it is a whole of state number. I am not the operations manager who does the rostering for every department office.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Badcoe is warned.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON: However, I am focused with my CE on getting those vacancies down as fast as we can. We have made significant inroads. Remember, there were 279 vacancies under Labor and there are less than 60 now. This is better than ever before.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Newland, I call to the order the member for Wright, the Minister for Innovation and Skills, the Minister for Energy and Mining, the Deputy Premier, the member for West Torrens and the leader.