Office for Early Childhood Development Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 August 2024.)

Mr ODENWALDER: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:54): I rise today in support of the Office for Early Childhood Development Bill 2024. Ahead of the election of our Malinauskas Labor government, nearly a quarter of all five year olds in South Australia were starting school behind their developmental milestones—nearly the highest proportion of all other jurisdictions. Clearly, something needed to be done to better support South Australian families so that their children are ready for future success. We all want our children to have the absolute best possible chance in life. To know so many children in our state are not having the best start is really concerning and why we are working so hard to do something about it.

In recent years, research on early childhood has shown just how crucial the years before school are to the rest of a child's life. We now understand that as much as 90 per cent of adult brain development and growth occurs within the first five years of life. So the South Australian Labor team promised that, should we form government, we would establish a royal commission into early childhood education and care.

In October 2022, within eight months of our election, we began the work required to deliver on that promise, as the Hon. Julia Gillard AC was appointed as Royal Commissioner into Early Childhood Education and Care. Over the coming year the commission would listen to the expert advice of a variety of stakeholders, parents and members of the public before publishing its final report in August 2023. The commission's final report made 43 recommendations for reform aimed at improving child learning and development. These recommendations set out a plan to give every child the start to life they deserve. We join the commission, and the broader South Australian community, in working towards a future in which every child in this state is provided with the support they need to learn and thrive.

The Malinauskas Labor government has committed to action on all of the commission's recommendations as we set the ambitious goal of making South Australia a national leader in early childhood development. We have a large task ahead of us, as nearly a quarter of South Australian children are developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains when they commence school. We need a holistic approach to early childhood development to improve the outcomes of all South Australian children.

The first recommendation of the royal commission sought a long-term ambition to help South Australian children thrive. The commission has asked us to set out a 20-year goal to reduce the rate of South Australian children entering school developmentally vulnerable—as measured by the Australian Early Development Census—from the current rate of 23.8 per cent down to 15 per cent.

The second recommendation seeks a steward of our early childhood development system, whose mandate will be to help us reach our goal in the commission's first recommendation—an office for early childhood development.

As the title of this bill may have spoiled, today we act upon the second recommendation of the royal commission, with a bill to establish the Office for Early Childhood Development. This bill provides a legislative mandate for the Office for Early Childhood Development to provide statewide, strategic oversight and direction of the early childhood system. The office will also be required to collaborate and engage with the many organisations and people who play a role in the early years of a child's life.

This will include working with communities, Aboriginal leaders, local government, as well as public and private providers in health, human services, child protection and early childhood education and care. The office will work collaboratively to mobilise long day care, early learning centres and government services in every community to deliver universal three-year-old preschool.

This bill also includes functions for the Office for Early Childhood Development to support research in the early childhood development space and to support and facilitate the sharing of data across the system. We all want to work together.

This bill also includes functions to promote the participation of children with disability and children in care, in the early childhood development system. This integrated approach, with coordinated referral pathways, will support children to access the services they need to achieve their best outcomes possible.

Furthermore, the bill includes specific functions for the Office for Early Childhood Development to support Aboriginal children through shared decision-making and co-designed with Aboriginal leadership and community. This is a particularly important focus for the office as we know that around half of all Aboriginal children enrolled in their first year of school are developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains.

Last week we saw the release of the Productivity Commission's inquiry into early childhood education and care. The report made a number of recommendations regarding universal access to early childhood education and care including: affordability and quality, increasing and providing additional support to the early childhood education workforce, needs-based inclusion and support, and the need for coordinated stewardship across the early childhood system. The release of this report was just under a week ago and is timely as we debate the bill before us today. While we are still digesting the findings of the report, the recommendations of it do appear to align with the recommendations of our Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care.

In addition to this bill, our most recent state budget committed an additional investment of $1.9 billion in early childhood services and support over the years leading up to 2032-33. This once-in-a-generation investment is a huge step forward towards our commitments and accomplishing the goals established by the recommendations of the royal commission.

Three-year-old preschool will be rolled out progressively from 2026 with an initial focus on regional and remote communities, where access to preschool and wraparound out-of-hours care can best support workforce participation and improve economic outcomes in addition to supporting children's development. Long day-care centres across South Australia can also begin delivering three-year-old preschool from 2026, so long as they meet the quality requirements.

We will also be providing additional support for particularly vulnerable children with integrated hubs and additional preschool hours being made available to the children who need it most. Early childhood education and care workers are crucial to the success of this reform. That is why we are investing $96.9 million in this workforce, specifically to support attraction, qualification pathways, retention and quality.

In closing, I would really like to thank everyone whose work, contributions and experiences helped to shape the bill we have before us. Thank you to everyone who participated in the consultation on this bill and the Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care. Thank you also to our Minister for Education, Training and Skills and his team for your work in bringing this bill to us and your guidance and expertise as we work towards our ambitious goals.

As the South Australian Premier has declared time and time again in this place and beyond, we are not just interested in legislating for the next four years. We are working for the next generation, for the future.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (17:01): I rise to indicate my support for the Office for Early Childhood Development Bill 2024. This bill establishes the Office for Early Childhood Development as a steward of South Australia's early childhood development system.

Universal three-year-old preschool was recommended by the Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care, chaired by commissioner the Hon. Julia Gillard AC in recognition that in South Australia nearly one in four children are developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains when they commence school.

Improving outcomes for South Australian children requires a holistic approach across the entire early childhood development system. This bill provides the legislative mandate for the office to provide statewide strategic oversight and direction of the early childhood system and to collaborate and engage with the many organisations and people who intersect in the early years of a child's life.

The royal commission's final report details an ambitious vision for the future and contains three key unifying themes of the report on the new system. The first is that every child will benefit from greater access to quality services, including an extra year of preschool. However, because, of course, children are different, the system will be universal but not uniform, which means additional help will get to the children and families who need it most. This is important as we want the highest quality education for every child and we know that a one-size-fits-all approach does not deliver the best outcomes for all our children.

The second key theme is irrespective of a family's postcode the quality of service is to be improved. The commission recommends that every service, whether provided by government, the private sector or a not-for-profit, should link together and form a coherent system that is easier for families to use. Once again, this is critical as we know that having fewer opportunities due to where you live can impact a person's life and we should not be impacting the future of three year olds based on where they attend early child care and their parents' circumstances.

Thirdly, South Australia can be a nation leader on early childhood development by driving towards an ambitious goal to reduce the number of children starting school with developmental challenges, offering up to 30 hours of preschool per week for three and four year olds who need the most development support, constantly translating new scientific knowledge into action and leading the national policy conversation on the early years.

I am proud to be a part of another significant reform being implemented by our Malinauskas Labor government once again leading the nation, and once again, improving the future for South Australians. The Office for Early Childhood Development will work with communities; Aboriginal leaders; local government, non-government and government providers in health, human services and child protection; and government and non-government early childhood education care providers to support children to thrive.

The office will work collaboratively to mobilise long day care, early learning centres and government services in every community to deliver a new offer of universal three-year-old preschool. The South Australian budget 2024-25 committed an additional $1.9 billion in early childhood services and support over the period to 2032-33. This investment represents a once-in-a-generation commitment to reducing the rate of South Australian children entering school developmentally vulnerable. Our nation-leading three-year-old preschool will be rolled out progressively from 2026, with an initial focus on regional and remote communities.

Access to preschool and wraparound out-of-hours care in these communities will not only support children's development but also support workforce participation and improved economic outcomes in the region. Long day-care centres across the state that meet quality requirements can also begin delivering three-year-old preschool in 2026. Additional supports will be provided for particularly vulnerable children, with integrated hubs and additional preschool hours being made available to children who need them most. An integrated early childhood education and care system will bring together education, health and human services to support the best outcomes for children.

Coordinated referral pathways will be created to support children to access the services they need to thrive. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the early education and care workforce, a role that has been undervalued for too long as people dismiss these staff as other, as less than other educators, but we all know the critical difference that early childhood education and care staff make in our young people's lives. Our state government acknowledges this by committing an investment of $96.6 million in early childhood education and care workforce initiatives that will support attraction, qualification pathways, retention and quality.

The Australian Early Development Census shows that around half of Aboriginal children enrolled in their first year of school are vulnerable in one or more areas. This bill includes specific additional functions for the office in respect of Aboriginal children. Shared decision-making and co-design with Aboriginal leadership and community will better support Aboriginal children and their families and unlock the full benefit of preschool programs for these children.

Just last week, the Productivity Commission's inquiry into early childhood education and care report recommended universal access to early childhood education and care, affordability and quality, the need to support and increase the workforce, needs-based inclusion support and the need for coordinated stewardship across the early childhood system. This report is timely and will be examined by the government but does seem to have good alignment with the recommendations of South Australia's Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care, and the reforms being rolled out by the Office for Early Childhood Development. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services, Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well) (17:08): I am absolutely rising in support of this bill and offer my support for future generations of South Australians in doing so. Our Premier has consistently spoken about the need to make policy for the long term, for a future when everyone in this place will either be retired or long gone, but when our actions will still have a lasting impact. This kind of approach is happening across government from energy to the environment to housing to education to health and early childhood development. It is most definitely also happening across all of the work we are doing in the Department of Human Services.

There is an old saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. In the absence of a time machine, the next best time to help the next generation is now, and to start with the youngest children—we can absolutely do that. At the last election we promised a royal commission into early childhood education and care, and I want to especially express my thanks to Julia Gillard for her outstanding work in helping us to deliver this promise.

Without going into every detail of the bill, as many members and the minister have already done, I welcome the proposed establishment of the Office for Early Childhood Development that will complement and build on other important work across government. This includes world-leading research being undertaken now by the BetterStart group at the University of Adelaide and important programs delivered by the Department of Human Services. These are programs that help young mums. They provide targeted early intervention services to help at-risk families and build better links in local communities. At a national level, we are also working to develop foundational supports to operate alongside the NDIS and provide a broader range of services, particularly for children with developmental delays.

The background to this bill and the royal commission both highlighted that children who are behind early have big challenges in catching up. We do not just need to do better, we need to make a once-in-a-generation change to our approach to early childhood. This legislation will be an important part of that.

The seeds that we plant in the minds of our children—and I will throw in grandchildren, given that my husband and I have just welcomed our first grandchild, little Flynn; Flynn might like to see his name in the Hansard one day as he learns to read in the coming years, maybe much earlier than some children are today—will grow into attitudes, skills, inventions and relationships of the future. Without going too far on the seed and plant analogy, we reap what we sow.

When people make snide or derogatory comments about the youth of today, there may be some simple generational divide issues but there is also an implied failure on the part of the generation making those comments. We are literally the grown-ups in the room when it comes to making decisions about, and investments in, the youngest members of our community and their futures. The new office will help us to make the best decisions and the best investments. It will have an important role in providing collaboration and leadership across areas as diverse as health, human services, disability and child protection.

The Productivity Commission and the royal commission have given us huge amounts of data and research about why we need to do better and what we can do better. I genuinely hope that in decades to come researchers can give governments of the future much better data and much better research about childhood development as a result of what we are debating right here today. But the absolute proof for me will be that little Flynn and his peers in decades to come will be doing much better. I will know we have succeeded when I see them achieving things that they never thought they could do.

I will be even prouder of my community than I am today when I see kids entering primary school on a more level playing field and not being forced to play catch-up right from the start of the race. I will think back on how we vote on this bill, and when I see them working with each other and supporting each other like good community members I will know we have done the right thing.

I will rest easier in my retirement when I see them confidently become teachers, managers, builders, social workers, doctors, artists, musicians, volunteers, and the mums and dads of a future South Australia. The bill before us today is just one part of that future, but a critical one that I commend to the house.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:13): I am pleased to speak on the Office for Early Childhood Development Bill and indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition. There are a range of matters I will bring to the house's attention. If the requirement is that I have to break from transmission at 5.31pm if the house were to rise, I will seek leave and continue tomorrow. I foreshadow that I do not anticipate it being a hugely lengthy contribution, but as we are just 15 minutes from the end of today's session, potentially, I will endeavour this afternoon to put some matters on the record that will be complemented separately by matters that I will bring to attention tomorrow.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Member for Morialta, you have unlimited time, and when you seek to seek leave it is your business and no-one else's.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Thank you, sir. We are dealing with the Office for Early Childhood Development Bill. This bill seeks to establish in legislation an office, a department if you will, and there is a question then about whether or not the functions and goals of this department are best set into effect through legislation or whether they would be capable of being achieved through the normal procedure which is, as is already the case—given that this office already exists—through the Public Sector Act: the fact that the Premier is able to create a department, to create an agency, to create an office without requiring its own bill, so we will go into that.

Secondly, there are the merits of the bill, which is established to create the Office for Early Childhood Development, which is going to be a system steward as is described for the early childhood development sector, which does not just comprise government services but also non-government services, whether they be out-of-school-hours care, whether they be long daycare services—child care as it is more commonly referred to—and, indeed, a whole wide range of other providers and stakeholders. The legislation is created not just in terms of providing policy leadership in this space, but also to have the powers to compel the provision of information from other government departments and agencies and also from non-government providers.

It is particularly in relation to this last point that I will spend a little bit of time this afternoon, and hopefully I will have some further time to expand on the other topics tomorrow. Because this office already exists, I start by expressing my gratitude to the minister's office and to the public servants involved: so to Jamie and Joanna from the Department for Education who are very well known to this chamber—and we may get to meet them again in the committee stage of this debate—for their extensive work in supporting various items of education legislation through the parliament, to Kim Little, the newish chief executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development and to Amy Ralfs, the minister's adviser.

When it became apparent that this bill would be brought on this week at relatively short notice—we had anticipated originally a little bit more time to do some more consultation—that group of people came together at short notice to be able to brief me and, indeed, we had a good half-hour session talking about it. There were other matters that came up that meant that we could not get through everything.

One of the key things that came out of that meeting was, indeed, my first question: given that this office already exists, we have a chief executive and we have staff doing the work, why does it need an act of parliament? Even the Department for Education is not created by the Education and Children Services Act, it is created as a function of the Public Sector Act. The SA Health Act talks about a range of things, but the department for health is created through the Public Sector Act.

Most departments that report to the ministers who sit on the front bench are created by the Public Sector Act, not by their own acts of parliament. Acts of parliament tend to be reserved for commissions, for advocacy and oversight bodies, for groups like the Ombudsman—people who have certain powers or duties that are separate from government. A lot of our arts institutions are created by acts of parliament so that they have independence to a certain extent or a particular role in the public sphere, which is independent of the government of the day.

The universities are established by their own acts of parliament and have their own functions set out in that way. So why does this department—with a chief executive appointed by and responsible to the Premier, as are all the other chief executives, with day-to-day functioning, reporting to a minister in a fairly standard Public Service mechanism—need its own act of parliament rather than just operating as it already does under the Public Sector Act? The answer from the briefing, if I can fairly try and summarise it, comes down to two things, but really one thing: it is about the powers and, to a certain extent, it is about the lasting nature of something that is legislated as opposed to being responsive to the preferences of the government of the day. But even then it comes down to powers because the powers to compel the provision of information that are in this act are a result of the functions of the act.

The powers—for those following along at home—are detailed in clauses 10, 11 and 12, particularly in relation to clause 11, of the bill. Clause 10 of the bill provides the chief executive to require other state authorities to provide reports into basically any matter that is set out as reasonable according to the functions of the office. The fact is that that can already happen, but this bill sets out a mechanism.

For example, if the Office for Early Childhood Development is seeking to compel the Minister for Tourism's department to provide information to it, at the moment it can ask. This bill will empower the chief executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development to compel the Minister for Tourism's public servants to provide them with whatever information they ask for, so long as it is consistent with the functions under the act.

But if the Minister for Tourism's officers decide not to, the methodology then is that the OECD department provides a report to their minister of the refusal or failure of that department to do so. That gets reported in the annual report and the minister can try to resolve it: the Minister for Education goes to the Minister for Tourism and says, 'Can you please get your public servants to do this?' That is the mechanism described. There is no punishment or consequence for failure to do so, but at the end of the day that is what is set out in clause 10 of the bill.

The minister then may decide to, 'by notice in writing, exempt a State authority from the operation of this section'. So, ultimately, when the Minister for Tourism explains why her public servants did not necessarily want to provide information, the Minister for Education can say, 'Okay, that's fine.' But there is potentially—and this is why the opposition is keen, ultimately, before we decide on whether or not we are going to offer any amendments or opposition to the bill—an impact on non-government agencies which is more profound than that which might be suffered by the Minister for Tourism and her officers in such a situation. Clause 11 provides that:

(1) The Chief Executive may, by notice in writing, require a specified entity (whether or not the entity is a State authority, or an officer or employee of a State authority) to provide to the Chief Executive such information, or such documents, as may be specified in the notice (being information or documents in the possession of the entity that the Chief Executive reasonably requires for the performance of functions under this Act).

I will go through the functions later but, to be clear, they go up to (n), so there is a fair number of those functions.

If the chief executive, in fulfilling any of those functions, identifies that there is information that one of these non-government agencies might be required to produce, then they are empowered to demand that, with a penalty of $5,000 for the entity that fails to comply with such a notice or refuses to comply with such a notice. Clause 11, subclause (3) of the bill describes that:

(3) An entity of whom a requirement is made under subsection (1) must give the specified information or documents to the Chief Executive within the period specified in the notice.

Now, this may be fine. This is a heavily regulated part of public policy. It is also a very heavily publicly funded part of public policy, particularly through commonwealth subsidies to parents who then pay childcare centres, in effect.

We are talking about a large number of bodies, though. For example, in the development of this policy it is an understanding that there is not so much an early childhood system as an early childhood sector; that is, there are government early childhood providers, particularly preschools. There are about 400 government preschools in South Australia—not quite 400, but there are nearly 400. There are about 47 early childhood centres. Some of those are preschools, some of them are long day-care centres, some of them are allied health providers and some of them are playgroups, and most of them will have multiple functions within that setting. So the government is a major service provider.

Then there is a significant community sector in this area. There are about 100 community childcare centres in South Australia that are also captured by this legislation, mostly offering long day-care services and some of them offering other services as well. Then there are a large number of children who get long day care in private childcare settings, whether they are mum-and-dad operations with potentially one, two or three centres, or large national companies, potentially even international companies, with dozens of centres, whether they are South Australian-based or auspiced interstate or overseas.

In addition to that, there are non-government schools, of which there are 200 in South Australia, many of which offer early childhood settings as well. There are providers of out-of-school-hours care in government settings and non-government settings, some of which are indeed related to those schools and some of which are companies established for the purposes of providing out-of-school-hours care. Then there are councils which run long day care centres, and then there are family day care providers as well, who, although they are all coordinated through the Department for Education, are not employees of the Department for Education. In effect, they are family day care settings. They are the ultimate mum-and-dad small business. There are people working from home, performing work under contract through the Department for Education, who regulate them.

There is also a range of other providers and stakeholders who are relevant to the bill. People offering playgroup services, for example, can be anything from a private business to a community group established for the purposes of providing a playgroup, to any other number of organisations. These are the people who are captured—and I say thousands of people and thousands of entities, potentially—by this information gathering power.

I do not want to act as if this is the end of the world. In many cases, this is going to be a very logical and sensible information gathering exercise in which we can better inform public policy so that the government of the day can help South Australia's children, in their first thousand days of life in particular, be the best they can be. It is to ensure that government policy can be implemented in a way that is useful in helping children develop and be less developmentally vulnerable by the time they get to school and all of the worthy things that are identified in the royal commission and in government members' speeches.

Many of these information gathering powers will potentially assist in the government to do that best, but every time the government creates a new power for a public servant—in this case, somebody who is appointed chief executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development; the failure to comply with that power by a private individual having a $5,000 penalty, which is no insignificant amount for an individual, a family day care provider operating from home or a small business operating a long day care services, for example, or a community childcare centre with very minimal margins that are designed to be reinvested in the service provision—it deserves consideration and scrutiny.

The question I asked in the briefing was effectively: why do we need this power to be created in legislation? This is something that can already be sought by a government. Inasmuch as the government is providing funding to many of these services to operate—and we were talking about in the case of the model for three-year-old preschool, or what the government is describing as three-old-preschool—with regard to the provision of new funding, surely the provision back of information as being one of the requirements for getting that new funding can be dealt with without creating this new offence, without creating this new power, this new penalty of $5,000 on a person.

My simple proposition is that I want to ask people in the sector whether they have a view. Those emails and letters are going out this week. I am not proposing to seek a delay or argue for a delay in this house—it is not necessary—but I am proposing that between houses the opposition may well identify amendments, particularly to this section, if it is necessary to respond to some of the feedback that I may get from the sector.

I understand that clause 12 of the bill relates to the sharing of information between certain entities, those entities being the office, the department, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, the Guardian for Children and Young People, the Child Development Council, a state authority, government and non-government schools, childcare services and OSHC services, the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia, Catholic Education, the South Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Network—those entities all being in legislation—and other entities or entities of a class prescribed by regulations.

This clause sets out that information can be provided between those organisations for the purposes of fulfilling the act. There are penalties in relation to misuse of those information-sharing provisions, those penalties being up to $10,000. I am not anticipating these entities having any complaints about this clause; in fact, I have been reassured to some extent that some of these organisations listed specifically requested being included in the legislation because that will enable them to more freely share information, particularly if there are concerns about privacy provisions, but we will be checking up on that as well as we go through our consideration and our consultation on the matter.

I think that there is a lot of goodwill in the sector towards what is being sought not just by this government but by successive governments when it comes to seeking to reduce vulnerability of young children before they go into school. It was a significant body of work undertaken under the former Marshall Liberal government through my department, the Department for Education at the time, with the specific support and assistance of the member for Colton and the Hon. Nicola Centofanti, whom I brought in effectively to be part of a working group along with some departmental officers in terms of how we address some of these particular challenges about the vulnerabilities of children in their early childhood development.

It is a concern for young people in South Australia and for our community in South Australia that the data relating to the vulnerabilities of children entering preschool or school with at least one level of vulnerability on the Early Development Census has been growing in South Australia when in other states it has been diminishing. I should make the point that most of this data is from pre-2018. There was one census conducted I think in 2021, in the midst of COVID, which was largely consistent with the 2018 results.

Ultimately, that data informed recommendation 1 of the Gillard royal commission, which is to seek a reduction in early childhood vulnerability down to 15 per cent. I think it is just north of 22 per cent at the moment. The work that was done in 2020-21 in developing the 2021 early childhood budget bid was particularly focused in terms of the investment in increased levels of early childhood development checks and increased spread of those early childhood development checks. It was $16 million a year ongoing in that investment. That was directly towards addressing this challenge, this opportunity for us to get better outcomes for those young people.

That early childhood budget announcement also included investments in things that support parents in the work they do. The early childhood app, which I imagine most parents now have having been launched over a year ago, was a key recommendation of that body of work funded in the 2020-21 budget, as was the foundation that Kate Ellis chaired in relation to bringing together stakeholders on what has become the Words Grow Minds campaign, which is also, I think, a boon to parents. There is a particular amount of work going into playgroups and grants for councils to make more child-friendly spaces. All of these bodies of work that are now performing part of the new government strategy were developed under the former Liberal government.

When we come back to the bill, I will talk more about the work that the government is seeking to do in three-year-old preschool in particular, but I make the point: a large volume of what this bill seeks to achieve is happening without the bill. This bill that people have been talking about this afternoon and that we are debating is specifically about creating a legislated office rather than having an office just doing the work without legislation.

The difference between us passing this bill or not passing this bill, as far as I can tell, comes strictly down to whether or not the person appointed by the Premier as chief executive should have these powers and, secondly, whether the parliament believes that there is a long-term policy implication associated with each of these functions set out in legislation that would require the parliament to change those functions in the future, rather than a government presented with new information setting its own agenda in the future instead. We will talk more about that next time, but for the moment I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

At 17:35 the house adjourned until Wednesday 25 September 2024 at 10:30.