Child Protection Department

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (16:38): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. Were any of the children involved in an incident that occurred on 25 June at Arndale Shopping Centre known to or under the care of the Department for Child Protection? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TEAGUE: On 25 June 2024, SAPOL arrested six children. They were charged with aggravated affray in relation to an incident at Arndale Shopping Centre. It has been alleged that two of the children were brandishing knives.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (16:38): I will try again to explain to the member for Heysen that I am not going to get in the way of a police investigation or court matters by providing commentary on particular incidents that have occurred. I have tried and tried and tried to explain this. I have tried to help him to understand all that we are dealing with to help improve the lives of children and young people through transforming our child protection and family support system.

As I did in estimates, I invite him again to be part of the changes that we are making, just as the sector keeps asking him to be part of the changes, just as they keep asking him to do. This is a really complex, hard set of issues that we face. They are really complex and really hard because the challenges for children and families are really, really complex. A lot of families are dealing with intergenerational trauma, with poverty, mental ill-health and domestic violence. Eighty per cent of notifications into the child protection and family support system have an element of domestic violence.

Families are also sometimes challenged by substance misuse and all of those challenges are often interconnected and across generation. So the challenges we have are not easy but I and the government are absolutely immersed in driving change that helps to improve the lives of children and young people and their families and that reforms the system. It is a long-term task and sadly that reform was not deeply engaged in during the time of the former government. Those deep questions were not asked.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left!

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: Alongside those efforts and understanding those challenges we have also invested $450 million. That is opposed to the efficiency measures—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey!

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: —that were implemented by the former government, efficiency measures that meant cuts. Instead, in contrast, we have invested $450 million. So they can run around and try and portray that investment as a terrible thing, but we are clear that we should invest in the child protection and family support system. We have and we are—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: We are also seeing outcomes, thank you for reminding me of that: 92 per cent. I give the same answer that I provided over and over and over again and they are published, those figures are published.

The SPEAKER: Minister, your time is up.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: It is just bizarre, their focus.

The SPEAKER: Sorry, minister, your time is up.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: Get on board. Let's do this together.

The SPEAKER: The member for Heysen.