Minister for Child Protection, New Zealand Visit

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. Can the minister inform the house of her recent visit to New Zealand?

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) (15:00): Thank you very much to the member for her question and for her really strong interest in the child protection and family support system and the improvements that we are making in the lives of children and young people.

I am really pleased to inform the house of my recent visit to New Zealand, which came at a pivotal time for our government as we continue to grow our family group conferencing offering and embark on the development of the first social worker registration scheme here in Australia.

Across the two days in New Zealand I held meetings and conversations with ministers, department officials, non-government organisations and community-controlled organisations across the many areas of their child protection and family support system. We were informed about and enabled to deeply consider their positive advancements in aligning government, community and sector effort to make lasting and impactful improvements in the lives of children and young people and their families.

The New Zealand family group conferencing model has been in place for over 20 years and South Australia's program is based on this model. As I have spoken about in this place before, our government has rightly invested more than $13 million into family group conferencing because we know that it works. The results here in South Australia are making a profound difference in the lives of children and young people. The learnings provided from another jurisdiction that has taken the path to expand family group conferencing offerings were crucial to ensure we are on the right path and learn how the government, the sector and particularly the extraordinary Maori-led organisations were aligned in their delivery of this important program.

Maori-led organisations are leading the way in this area, which, as we all know from our own experiences, is really important to ensure children are connected to culture, family, country and community. We held really important conversations with the Ministry for Children and the Chief Social Worker regarding our shared priorities and challenges across the two systems and how their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy is helping to drive change in the outcomes for children in New Zealand with their overarching vision that New Zealand be the best place in the world for children and young people, an ambition we of course hope to share and advance for our state.

A key element of my trip was meeting with the team responsible for the Social Worker Registration scheme, a scheme in place there since 2002. It was really helpful to learn from the team what has worked well in their rollout of mandatory registration and the challenges that they have faced, as well as meeting with independent statutory oversight bodies who advocate and provide advice to government for and with children. It was really important to me to ensure I met with those in the system who work with families every single day.

I held a lengthy discussion with organisations that provide services to families subject to a notification of concern. It was a privilege to sit and talk with these outstanding workers about how families navigate the system with the department walking alongside community organisations to ensure that families are supported to stay together. I am really grateful to the many people and organisations who gave us time and shared their wisdom. It helped to renew and cement our absolute determination to continue to drive change in the system and we were encouraged that our reforms are on the right path. I offer gratitude to all who took time to share their experiences with us and those who wholeheartedly encouraged our government in our endeavours, particularly those Maori community members.