Bills

Social Workers Registration Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (17:56): I table the remainder of my comments in the interests of saving time.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:57): I rise to make just a few brief remarks about the passage of this bill. In doing so, I want to start by thanking the Hon. Tammy Franks for her work to progress the bill and her staff who are here with us in the gallery. I know that she took the lead in making sure that this bill was brought to the house, as it should have been some time ago, and I thank her for that.

I also thank the member for Hurtle Vale, who has taken carriage of the bill in this house for Labor. I thank her for her remarks, and I also thank those who have supported her in that process. Really importantly, I want to thank those who have advocated over decades for this Social Workers Registration Bill to progress.

In thinking about this bill, my mind and my heart were immediately drawn to my many years at the ASU, where I had the pleasure of representing social workers—incredible people who worked in domestic violence shelters, youth organisations, homeless shelters, health, education, schools, and a range of other settings in small and large charitable organisations—and I was thinking about a number of those people when I was contemplating this bill.

I think they are characterised by an absolutely united, shared sense of wanting not just to support people in our community but to empower and walk alongside the most vulnerable people in our community, to help them often walk new paths to build new journeys and to contemplate safer, brighter futures, often after contemplating and going through some of the most difficult moments in their life.

When I was thinking about those people—whose work I take another opportunity in this parliament to absolutely pay tribute to—I was thinking about the equal pay case and campaign that I was part of running together with 200,000 community workers across Australia, many of them social workers, 85 per cent of whom, amongst that cohort of workers, were women.

I distinctly remember going to workplaces all over South Australia, and indeed across the Northern Territory as well, and talking with social workers about why they do the work that they do. Every single one of those workers, every single one of those social workers I spoke to never spoke about the money—and that is why we were running an equal pay case—but always about their deep commitment to ensuring that the most vulnerable members of our community were supported, were empowered, that their voices were amplified and that they always knew that they were never ever alone.

In speaking in support of this bill today, I want to absolutely pay tribute to those workers. I also wanted to reflect on a group of workers that I met with just last week, together with the Hon. Tammy Franks, and a representative of the Hon. Connie Bonaros's office. They were workers who worked at the Department for Child Protection and a number of them were also social workers. My goodness, the issues that they raised with me and with the other members of parliament present were utterly alarming.

At the same time, again, I heard from those workers that deep commitment to wanting to work with and for the most vulnerable people and the most vulnerable children, in this case, in our state. They were absolutely extraordinary and it was a privilege to hear from them. It was alarming to hear from them and to hear about the issues that they were confronting but, as always, I felt deeply privileged to sit with them and to listen to them and to be inspired by their commitment to the people with whom they worked and worked for—and, again, that deep commitment to make a difference in people's lives. I found it utterly inspiring.

Unfortunately, there was another invitee to that particular forum, and that was the Minister for Child Protection, who was not present. I wish that she had been there to hear from those workers. I wish that she had shown up. I also really wish that she would show up on the issues that she spoke about when she started her speech before lunchtime today. We heard from the minister in relation to this bill a series of—I am not quite sure how to describe them—statements about what was happening in the Department for Child Protection.

As I said, I wish she would show up on those issues that are actually happening in the Department for Child Protection that those social workers and other workers in the Department for Child Protection have to front up and show up and deal with every single day, day in, day out, week after week, often in some cases decade after decade, and they continue to do so with that passion in their hearts to make a difference with and for the most vulnerable South Australian children.

What we heard from the minister before lunch was in stark and utter contrast to the sorts of issues that we know about, the systemic issues that continue to plague child protection: the fact that since coming into government, since this minister has been the Minister for Child Protection, around an additional 1,000 children are now in care in South Australia; the fact that two budgets ago, despite the fact that in a three-month period there were around 1,200 shifts in residential care that simply went uncovered, staff are absolutely crying out not to have to do the excessive overtime, crying out not to have to look after children on their laps in offices, crying out not to have to feel compromised in the way that they so desperately want to provide really great care but are so stretched in terms of the resources. I wish that the minister would show up on those issues also.

Despite all those issues, two budgets ago the budget showed that there was a $10 million underspend in staffing. I know that in the minister's remarks she spoke about recruitment of staff into the Department for Child Protection. The sad fact, and one the minister just refuses to show up on, is that around 1,000 additional vulnerable children are now in care in South Australia and the recruitment of staff is absolutely nowhere near commensurate with what is required to enable those big-hearted staff to provide the best possible care that they can.

Another issue that was not mentioned in the minister's speech was that just last year around 10,000 missing person reports in relation to children in care were notified. Just last year, in a 12-month period 14,500 calls to the Child Abuse Report Line simply went unanswered. I think every South Australian would shudder to think what might have been missed when that phone just simply rang out, when it just simply went off to a voicemail or wherever it goes when it is just not answered.

I fervently wish that the minister had shown up and heard from these workers. I am not sure what her other commitments were, but I do wish that she could have been there. Most importantly, I wish she would show up on these issues that are absolutely plaguing the child protection system. All those figures I just talked about represent vulnerable children who absolutely deserve better. I wish also that this minister would have shown up on this bill much, much earlier.

I think the member for Hurtle Vale has articulated very well the journey to get to this bill. She spoke about the committee, and she spoke about the length of time since the committee concluded its findings before we get to this point that we have a bill in front of us. That is because of other members of this house and absolutely the Hon. Tammy Franks and others who supported her in the upper house. I wish the minister also had shown up much earlier on this bill because I have many more things to say about it.

I have been committed to supporting social workers for a very long time. They do deserve for issues to be thoroughly explored in this place and for this bill to have progressed much earlier. I am glad it is here now. As the member for Hurtle Vale has spoken about, we will support the bill, but I think that these incredible South Australians deserve much better, both in terms of what they are dealing with in child protection and in terms of how this bill was actually progressed. With those remarks, I indicate again that we will be supporting this bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (18:08): I would not usually rise to make a contribution on a bill like this, and I do not propose to canvass the detail of the bill. Suffice to say, I think that all members of parliament support the establishment of this registration scheme and that by the end of this evening that work of this parliament will be done. The reason I am rising to speak is that I listened with interest to some of the comments made before lunch, by both the member for King and the member for Adelaide, about child protection here in South Australia.

I think all of us can realise that child protection remains one area of endeavour in South Australia that needs far more work, but the comments that came before lunch—namely, that the former Labor government did nothing about child protection—I find not just unnecessary but unnecessarily offensive, particularly to all of those people since the Layton report in 2003 who have dedicated their lives to trying, firstly, to broaden the recognition of child protection issues in South Australia and, secondly, actually do something about it.

It might be politically convenient for some people on any side of this debate to make broadbrush statements like that, but it is not only highly offensive to those people who work in child protection as social workers but I particularly want to say it is extremely offensive to those people who have been the victims of child abuse, including in state-run institutions and in other institutions, who have for the first time in their lives, usually after decades of deep-set and well-founded mistrust in institutions like government, taken the extraordinary step of stepping forward to tell their story.

Of course it is appropriate that we have a political debate about the merits of this legislation and that we reflect on what progress has been made, whether that progress has been adequate or not. I note, for example, that under the last term of the former Labor government an extra $150 million a year was tipped in, and I pay due respect to the current government that a further $150 million per year has been tipped in.

So let's end the needless politicisation about that element of child protection—the pretence that nothing has ever been done about this and the pretence about those people who dedicate their lives trying to improve the lot of children in state care or children who have suffered at the hands of people in government and other institutions of the most horrific child abuse that is imaginable. Let's move past that and start focusing on those areas that should make a difference to ensure that we can better protect children in the future, and this bill of course is just one part of that.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (18:11): I want to briefly thank the contributors at the second reading stage and comment very quickly on some of the statements made by the minister in her speech. I call out the statement that she has acted swiftly. This would have to be one of the slowest movements of a bill that was gifted that I have seen. I do not think that tricks anybody and I do not think it assists her at all in gaining the respect of social workers in regard to that commentary.

As I stated previously before we broke, when I made my initial speech, when we had our briefing the staff from the minister's office did not even know there was a bill, and that bill was tabled after much hard work. I think it is a bit cute for the minister to come out and have a crack at 16 years of Labor not acting on something they were never acting on, which was state-based registration of social workers. The previous minister, Jack Snelling, did attempt to do this in the fashion that was recommended, and that was at a commonwealth level, so it is a bit cute to make those accusations. I want to point that out and call out the minister for saying she acted swiftly because I do not believe she did. I do believe she wants this to happen and I really do not know why it did not happen earlier.

Thank you to the member for Reynell, the shadow spokesperson for child protection, who is doing her very best to hold the minister to account by meeting with stakeholders and bringing some of those stories of stark reality into this house of parliament, which would otherwise not occur. Thank you to the member for Lee, whose relative was mentioned in the minister's speech as well. I thank him for his contribution and I commend the bill.

Bill read a second time.