Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (16:13): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I am pleased to make a short second reading contribution here around this bill, which on the face of it may appear to be small in nature, but this has been a very long time coming. I say that as someone who, although more intimately involved in these proposed amendments in my role now as the Minister for Education—and child development is in there as well—has been involved in previous roles that I filled working for former ministers in the areas of child protection and education.

It will be known to many members of this place and certainly outside it as well that we have long faced a conundrum in this state around the ability for the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to commence their investigation into the death of a child—it is very important work, I must say, too—before the Coroner has completed their work. Because of the technical and detailed nature of the Coroner's work, it can often take a great deal of time, which of course delays the ability for Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee (CDSIRC) to commence their investigation.

Both investigations are important. Obviously, the Coroner's is incredibly important in terms of often coming to a finding around how the death occurred, and the causative facts there or the causative reasons for that, but so too is the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee's work in terms of what policy changes—often legal in nature and needing to be made in this place—need to be made post that tragic death to avoid circumstances where it might happen again.

I want to just give a little bit of background, perhaps, about the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee, which was established in 2006 and, as I said, played a very important role in this state's work to prevent the death of children. We know that for the families and friends of a child who has died, their death must be incomprehensible and will have an impact on the rest of their lives and the people around them as well. For the community more broadly, we cannot know fully what we have lost or what else those children may have contributed to our society had they been afforded more time.

The work of the committee, through the collection of data on child deaths and serious injuries, their circumstances and their causes, enables it to analyse and gain an understanding of child death and serious injuries across the state, and trends over time. This places it in a unique position to recommend legislative or administrative means to prevent similar cases in the future. The tragedy of a child's death is no less by the nature of its cause, whether that be by illness or by disease, by accident or from the abhorrent actions of another individual. However, we have seen in more recent years some shocking cases of child death through acts of violence and serious neglect and, in light of such cases, timely reviews of such deaths are necessary for the protection of the state's children.

To this end, the bill seeks to provide the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee with more flexibility as to when it can commence a review into a particular child death or serious injury by enabling the committee where appropriate to commence a review earlier than is currently permissible. Provisions of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act 2016 currently place limitations on the circumstances in which a review of a child's death or serious injury by the committee can commence.

Section 37(5), in particular, provides that the committee must not review a case of child death or serious injury unless a coronial inquiry has been completed, or the State Coroner requests the committee to carry out a review, or the State Coroner indicates that there is no present intention to carry out a coronial inquiry. The practical effect of the current provisions is that it can be a significant amount of time after a child's death or serious injury before the committee can start its review, which affects the potential impact the committee may have to improve child safety.

The bill provides the committee may commence a review into a child death or a serious injury that is the subject of an ongoing coronial inquest or inquiry or criminal investigation. However, the bill includes appropriate safeguards to protect against any compromise to an investigation, inquiry or inquest, including by:

requiring that in such a case the committee consult with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police (as the case may require);

providing the committee must take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation; and

enabling the Coroner or the commissioner to give directions to the committee as to the things they should or should not do in the course of the review if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

To support these changes, the bill includes express provisions for the committee, the South Australia Police and the State Coroner to share information for the purposes of determining whether to commence a review or in the carrying out of a review. The bill includes additional provisions for the protection of information held by the committee, including by providing that a person cannot be compelled to:

give evidence of matters becoming known to them as a member or staff of the committee;

produce a document that was prepared or made in the course of, or for the purposes of, a review of a case of child death or serious injury through their work with the committee; or

provide information that became known to them in the course of a review.

While the committee is currently an exempt agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, the bill further provides that a document prepared by the committee will be an exempt document for the purposes of the act, including where it is held by, or in the possession of, an agency other than the committee. The bill will also expand the circumstances in which the committee should commence a review to include where the case has been referred to the committee by the minister.

I just want to finish my remarks by saying I am really proud of the piece of work that has been done here. It has been a very, very long time coming. I remember all too well cases where the public, and indeed people in this place as well, very much wanted the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to be able to commence its work quickly so that we could have recommendations around things that should be put in place to prevent that death occurring again, and we were not able to do that.

It was not because there were not good reasons for that, I must say. Often, the Coroner or the police commissioner might have very good reasons why that should not occur, but of course I think there are cases, as we have identified here through this bill, where it can occur quickly, or simultaneously with a coronial investigation, without in some way compromising the integrity of the coronial inquest.

I really want to thank all those involved from CDSIRC (the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) and also SAPOL and the Coroner's office for the way in which they have worked with us on this. It is, I think, an excellent example of different parts of government working together for a great outcome. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (16:20): The bill enables the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to commence its reviews earlier, even before other investigations have concluded. This was previously seen as a risk when the committee was originally conceived, but in practice we have found the delays to sometimes be frustrating. I believe the safeguards in the bill that we have heard articulated by the minister in his second reading speech provide safeguards against those risks and are satisfactory. Therefore, the change is logical. The opposition therefore supports the bill.

Ms HOOD: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services, Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well) (16:24): I am really pleased to make a contribution to the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024. This important legislation is part of a suite of reforms that our government is undertaking to help keep South Australian children safe and supported.

While the death of a child, as I know more than most, is an unspeakable tragedy, the important work of the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee helps the government put in place a range of policies, precautions and checks and balances to ensure that it is not a repeated event.

We all know too well that history can teach us some really powerful and strong lessons and taking note of what has happened and what has led to an event happening is part of the learning and the experience that we use in order to prevent things from happening in the future. I certainly have lived by that ideology in terms of the work that I have done in both health and community work. Preventative health activities are often founded on the lessons learnt by cause and effect, and I used that understanding and those skills when I went into working in the community sector following the death of my son.

When we share those stories and we listen to people who have been through those journeys, we can learn lessons and those lessons can be a powerful tool for prevention in the future. Especially when we think about children and the loss of a child and the causative factors, we would be careless and as a society deemed pretty ignorant and incompetent if we did not take into account some of those learnings that we have yielded from experience.

Certainly working in our area with the Department of Human Services and the Child and Family Support System that we deliver, I know the hundreds of practitioners who work in that space daily share stories and talk about the cases that they are dealing with and some of the experiences that they are going through in order to learn from one another and build a much stronger, safer system to support children and families at risk.

Only yesterday, I went to one of the Community of Practice-type events where we were talking specifically around the occurrence or the commonality and common causative factors that lead to these dangerous and volatile households that can cause pretty terrible outcomes for children, families and communities in general. We know that around 75 per cent of the families in particular that we support in our Child and Family Support System service are exposed to current and ongoing domestic, family and sexual violence.

When we think about those behaviours and that violence and disrespect happening in a household with little ones and then with teenagers, it is those learned behaviours that go from generation to generation that make it essential for us to use review and reflection as a way to intervene and help vulnerable families and communities learn from each other.

We know that children at risk, children at risk of harm, children in dangerous situations, often are exposed to these violent and inappropriate behaviours in their own home. We know that sometimes that, sadly, then carries into the community and into the school community by these children and young people. Their learned behaviours can then be subject to some really difficult conversations in the school environment, and the earlier the better.

We know that, if that is not dealt with, that manifests often as a bullying and violent behaviour in older age groups. It then translates to violence as a teenager. The learned behaviours are taken from one environment to another. Our observation and the observation of expert practitioners and clinicians therefore become absolutely vital in order to learn from an event of the past to prevent the events of the future.

While I have focused on violence and bullying and learned behaviours, this is absolutely able to be translated into learning about environmental factors that can be the causation of a critical incident of sorts in a family or school or community or health environment.

All of these things are things that we must and do learn from, and the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee puts an expert lens on incidents. It looks at what has happened, it reads about how this happened and it listens to the powerful narrative from the testimony of people who have been witness to or involved in such critical incidents. The CDSIRC, as it is known, has been an important tool for 18 years in South Australia. I will read out the functions under the act. They are:

(a) to review cases in which children die or suffer serious injury with a view to identifying legislative or administrative means of preventing similar cases of death or serious injury in the future; and

(b) to make, and monitor the implementation of, recommendations for avoiding preventable child death or serious injury; and

(c) to maintain a database of child deaths and serious injuries and their circumstances and causes.

Again, I express how important the work is of the departments and the people who gather this information, store this information and, with expertise, translate this information to data so that it can be compared from one point in time to another, and we all as a community and as deliverers of policy can learn from that.

This bill seeks to empower the absolutely incredible work of the existing committee to take a broader lens to when they commence a review, and it does not seek to limit their capacity to undertake a review at a time of their choosing. It may mean that the committee is empowered to commence their review while a coronial inquiry is underway and we know that that often takes time. Having worked in health for many years I know it can be several years while information is being collected. When it comes to the pain of people involved who are close, it takes time for them to heal to a point to be able to tell their stories. So this will mean that that delay does not flow on to the good work of the policy machine where changes can be made to prevent something else from happening. The commencement of the review will in no way persuade, influence, amend or stymie the proceedings of the coronial inquiry. It just will help to progress the advancement of reform.

The three key elements that will not allow the committee to compromise, but will proceed in a way, is that it will require that in such a case the committee consult with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police, as the case may require. It also provides that the committee must take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation and, thirdly, in enabling the Coroner or the commissioner to give directions to the committee as to the things they should or should not do in the course of the review, if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

So this should give us confidence that we can commence the review, the listening and the reform process earlier and in such a way that it may make a difference. I do not have an example at hand—I do not know whether the minister does—but it can provide us with the opportunity to put in place safeguards that potentially will save a life.

The provisions are practical and they allow for earlier recommendations to help prevent future deaths and serious injuries amongst children and young people. The Malinauskas Labor government recognises the vital role of the CDSIRC in preventing deaths and serious injuries and for this reason the committee should have the opportunity with appropriate safeguards to begin that review, that reform process across systems, across health, education, community and legal systems.

The bill also provides necessary protections for information held by the committee ensuring it can carry out its work independently and without concern. The bill includes additional protections for information held by the committee, stipulating that individuals cannot be compelled to either give evidence on matters they learned as members of staff or as part of the committee, or produce documents prepared or created during a review of a child death or serious injury, or disclose information acquired during the course of the review. This does not mean that the committee cannot choose to provide such information if it could be helpful or important, but it is not compelled to do so.

While the committee is currently an exempt agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1991, the bill does further provide that a document prepared by the committee will be an exempt document for the purposes of the act, including where it was held by or in possession of an agency other than the committee. This is a current gap in the act that the government believes is important to resolve. Overall these changes are sensible and centred around the government doing more to protect children and young people. We are committed to listening and making ongoing improvements to ensure every child and young person is able to live safely and thrive.

I will use this opportunity to mention a wonderful person who is in the DHS staff and will be known by many in this place. I believe my friend the Minister for Child Protection presented Kerry Beck with a social worker award at last year's social worker awards, if I remember rightly. Kerry Beck has over 30 years' experience as a social scientist and social worker.

Kerry has held many roles in management, in executive roles for the government and in a range of settings. She has skills in the homelessness, mental health, drug and alcohol, child protection, family preservation and public housing sectors and she now is a director in DHS, in our child and family support system. Her title is Director of Safer Family Services. If I need sound, sage, fearless advice about services that have been delivered, Kerry is a go-to. She is someone that we as a government can trust because she absolutely wants a safer community and wants children to thrive.

I am sure there are people on both sides of the house who have worked with Kerry Beck. She is now part of the CDSIRC committee. I have been pleased to see that appointment and that is another reason why we should do as much as we can to ensure that this work can continue in the most progressive, expedient and safe way as possible. I think the bill delivers on this ambition. We are committed to listening and making ongoing improvements to ensure every child and young person is able to live safely and to thrive. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:41): I am pleased to support the bill, and I am grateful to the member for Unley who earlier was the lead speaker for the opposition as I was detained in a meeting and was not sure if I would have time to get here before the end of the bill. I endorse his remarks in support of the bill. I want to place on the record my gratitude to the members of the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee who gave me important advice during the time that I was the education minister.

I offer my thanks to Jane Abbey, who I had the privilege to assist in the appointment of as chair. She is a highly regarded legal professional in South Australia and I am sure she is providing the new government with great service. She and the team have provided this recommendation to the government for a mechanism to conduct reviews, even though a coronial inquest or other investigation may not yet have concluded. It is logical. The good people of the education department in their legal team—and I always recognise and appreciate their work—have identified a mechanism that satisfies the police commissioner and satisfies the Coroner, and that is good to see. I believe that the risk of any duplicate review happening while their considerations take place has been averted by the mechanism of the bill, as the member for Unley expressed.

I also want to place on the record—because I am not sure I took the opportunity to do so at the time—my thanks to Dr Mark Fuller who stepped up during an interregnum between chairs as the Acting Chair of the CDSIRC for a period of time despite his absolutely extraordinarily busy schedule in his professional life where he works with very, very difficult jobs supporting particularly children. He took a lot of his personal time to serve the people of South Australia as acting chair of this committee over a period of six months from memory, but I could be off there. I place on the record my thanks to him as well and note his continued work with the committee. This is a committee made up of some extraordinarily highly credentialled professionals who serve the people of South Australia well. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:44): I rise today in support of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024, which seeks to amend the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act 2016. I think we can all agree in this chamber that the most important role of any government or any parliament is to provide for the security and protection of the people who provide us with the privilege to represent them. While we all know that death is inevitable, we can always strive to provide for a more prosperous South Australia by reducing injury and preventable deaths.

The death or injury of a child is always a terrible tragedy, and we can and we must always do more to prevent serious harm to children in our state. The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee plays an integral role in the prevention of death and injury of South Australian children. Established in 2006, the core functions of this committee are: to review cases in which children die or suffer serious injury, with a view to identifying legislative or administrative means of preventing similar cases of death or serious injury in the future; to make and monitor the implementation of recommendations for avoidable, preventable child death or serious injury; and to maintain a database of child death and serious injuries and their circumstances and causes.

This is heartbreaking and difficult work, but it is necessary work. I am sure everyone in this place and indeed the broader South Australian community are immensely appreciative of the committee's work to make South Australia a safer place. The bill before us today seeks to give the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee more flexibility as to when it can commence a review into a particular child death or serious injury in our state.

As it currently reads, provisions of the existing Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act place limitations on the circumstances in which a review by the committee can commence. For example, the committee cannot review the case of a child death or serious injury unless a coronial inquiry has been completed, the State Coroner requests the committee to carry out a review, or the State Coroner indicates there is no present intention to carry out a coronial inquiry. As a result, the committee is often unable to begin its review until a significant amount of time has passed since a child's death or serious injury. We cannot continue to limit the capacity of the committee in this way. With appropriate checks and balances, the committee should be allowed to review deaths and serious injuries earlier, just as this bill provides.

However, it is also important that safeguards are put in place to not compromise an existing investigation, inquiry or inquest. Such safeguards will include: requiring that in such a case the committee consult with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police, as the case requires; providing that the committee must take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation; and enabling the Coroner or the commissioner to give directions to the committee as to the things they should or should not do in the course of the review if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a decision is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

This is sensible reform that also empowers the committee to make earlier recommendations to prevent future death or serious injury of South Australian children. To make effective recommendations and prevent future death and serious injury, the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee must be empowered to go about its work independently and without fear.

This bill includes a number of provisions for the protection of information held by the committee, including providing that a person cannot be compelled to give evidence of matters becoming known to them as a member or staff of the committee, to produce a document that was prepared or made in the course of or for the purposes of a review of a case of a child death or serious injury through the work of the committee, or to provide information that became known to them in the course of a review.

To clarify, the committee can choose to provide this information; this bill just means that they cannot be compelled to do so. The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee is currently an exempt agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1991, and this bill further provides that a document prepared by the committee will be an exempt document for the purposes of the act, including where it was held by or in the possession of an agency other than the committee.

One death or injury of a child is one too many. We can and we must do more to prevent these tragedies in South Australia, and the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee plays an integral role to our collective efforts. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (16:50): I rise to speak on the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill. This legislation is of paramount importance, as it addresses a critical issue that affects the most vulnerable members of our society, our children and young people.

As a parent I think you give birth, you finally have that joy, and then you worry every single day that something might happen to them. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a child, and to then need to go through all the processes sometimes to find out what happened. I think about my child every day. He is 21 now, and broke his foot the other day at work, and I think about how that could have been much worse. While he is not a child anymore, he is always my child.

At its core this bill is about preventing death and serious injury in South Australia, and we must acknowledge that one death, any child's death—you hear about them on the news, they might be right near where you live—you feel it. It is a lot for the family obviously, but the community feels it as well, and it is always incredibly sad when those unfortunate situations arise.

The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee, which was established in 2006, has been instrumental in reviewing cases of child death and serious injuries, identifying preventive measures as well, and maintaining a database of such incidents. Currently the legislation imposes some limitations on when that committee can commence its reviews, and this bill seeks to give that committee more flexibility in this regard.

Presently the committee must wait for the completion of a coronial inquiry or receive specific requests or indications from the State Coroner before initiating a review. This delay can be significant, potentially hindering our ability to implement timely preventive measures, and the quicker you can assess what has happened and work on how you can make things better for next time, put things in place to protect our children, can only be a good thing. Having to wait such a long time when these preventive measures could be put in place just inhibits the ability to keep our children safe.

The Malinauskas Labor government recognises the crucial role of the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee in helping prevent such tragic incidents. We believe that the committee should have the opportunity to review deaths and serious injuries earlier with appropriate checks and balances in place. To this end the bill introduces important safeguards to ensure that the committee's work does not compromise existing investigations, inquiries and inquests.

These include a mandatory consultation with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police, a requirement for the committee to take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising ongoing inquests, inquiries or investigations, and provisions for the Coroner or commissioner to give directions to the committee to prevent any potential compromise to their work. These provisions strike a balance between enabling earlier reviews and respecting the integrity of other investigative processes.

Furthermore, the bill strengthens the protection of information held by the committee. This is crucial for maintaining the independence and fearlessness of the committee's work. The legislation introduces additional provisions that prevent compelling committee members or staff to disclose information or documents related to their reviews. It is important to note that while the committee cannot be compelled to provide information, it retains the discretion to do so when deemed appropriate.

The bill also addresses a current gap in the Freedom of Information Act 1991, ensuring that documents prepared by the committee remain exempt, even when held by other agencies. These changes are sensible and centred around our government's commitment to better protect children and young people. We are dedicated to listening and making ongoing improvements to ensure every child and young person in South Australia can live safely and thrive.

In conclusion, this bill delivers on our ambition to create a safer environment for our kids. It empowers the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to act more swiftly and effectively while maintaining necessary safeguards. It is an important bill, and the committee is important. I cannot stress enough how I feel when I hear news of children passing, especially when we are not sure how it happens or why it happens, or when a child is injured really seriously and their life is changed forever. Their families' lives are changed forever. The more we can do to help that process, help find out what is going on, help find ways to prevent these things from happening in the future, it can only be a good thing. I commend the bill to the house.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (16:55): I rise to speak on the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024. At its core, this bill is about preventing death and serious injury for South Australians. Any death or injury is always one too many, and I concur with other speakers on this bill with regard to how terrified we would all be if this happened to one of our own and what it would do to the community that surrounds us. I, too, have terrible intrusive thoughts about what might happen one day to my children. It does not matter that they are now adults, living their own lives; those thoughts still remain.

The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee was established in 2006, and its functions under the act are:

(a) to review cases in which children die or suffer serious injury with a view to identifying legislative or administrative means of preventing similar cases of death or serious injury in the future; and

(b) to make, and monitor the implementation of, recommendations for avoiding preventable child death or serious injury; and

(c) to maintain a database of child deaths and serious injuries and their circumstances and causes.

This bill seeks to give the committee more flexibility as to when it can commence a review into a particular child death or serious injury. Currently, provisions of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act 2016 place limitations on the circumstances in which a review by the committee of a child's death or serious injury can commence, and those limitations, I suspect, must endure heartache.

Subsection 37(5) in particular provides that the committee must not review a case of child death or serious injury unless a coronial inquiry has been completed, or the State Coroner requests the committee to carry out a review, or the State Coroner indicates that there is no present intention to carry out a coronial inquiry. This results in a significant amount of time passing after a child's death or serious injury before the committee can start its review and, no doubt, before families can even consider closure.

The Malinauskas Labor government believes there is a crucial role for the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee in helping to prevent death and serious injury. It is for that reason that the committee should have the opportunity, with appropriate checks and balances, to review deaths and serious injuries earlier. However, it is important that safeguards are also put in place as not to compromise an existing investigation, inquiry or inquest. These include:

1. Requiring that in such a case the committee consult with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police, as the case requires;

2. Providing that the committee must take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation; and

3. Enabling the Coroner or the commissioner to give directions to the committee as to the things they should or should not do in the course of the review if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

These are sensible provisions, whilst also providing the opportunity for earlier recommendations to prevent future deaths and serious injury of children and young people.

The bill also ensures appropriate protections of information held by the committee. This is important, as the committee must be able to go about its work independently and without fear. The bill includes additional provisions for the protection of information held by the committee, including providing that a person cannot be compelled to:

1. Give evidence of matters becoming known to them as a member or staff of the committee;

2. Produce a document that was prepared or made in the course of or for the purposes of a review of a case of a child death or serious injury through the work of the committee; or

3. Provide information that became known to them in the course of a review.

This does not mean that the committee cannot choose to provide information, but it is not compelled to do so. While the committee is currently an exempt agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1991, the bill further provides that a document prepared by the committee will be an exempt document for the purposes of the act, including where it is held by or in the possession of an agency other than the committee. There is a current gap in the act that the government believes is important to resolve.

Overall, these changes are sensible and centred around the government doing more to protect children and young people. We are committed to listening and making ongoing improvements to ensure every child and young person is able to live safely and able to thrive. This bill delivers on this ambition. I commend the bill to the house.

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) (17:01): I, too, rise to speak in support of this Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024. I thank the Minister for Education for bringing this bill to the house, and I also thank those people who over the past 18 years have sat on the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee, who have done so with compassion, bringing such expertise and wisdom to this incredibly important function of government.

At its core, this bill is rightly about helping to prevent death and serious injury here in South Australia. One death or one injury is one too many and, indeed, any death of a child or young person, any harm to them, is utterly tragic. The loss of a child for a family and, indeed, an entire community is devastating, and I think with love of all of those who are mourning the loss of a precious young person.

When such an utterly devastating event occurs, it is incumbent upon all of us to learn all that we can by carefully examining the circumstances of that death or injury, whether it be an accidental death or injury or a death or injury that is perpetrated at the hands of a horrific offender, so that we can then take steps forward toward prevention.

The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee was established, as we have heard, in 2006—18 years ago—with its functions under the act rightly including the reviewing of cases in which children die or suffer serious injury. This review function works with a view to identifying legislative or administrative means and possible changes that could prevent other deaths or serious injuries into the future. This work is absolutely integral to ensuring that as well as this prevention being appropriately considered we also appropriately consider all ways that we can help children and young people across our community to grow up safe, loved, cared for, healthy and enabled to thrive.

The other functions of this committee are to make and to monitor the implementation of recommendations for avoiding preventable child death or serious injury and to maintain a database of child deaths and serious injuries and their circumstances and causes. Currently, the provisions of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) Act 2016 place limitations on the circumstances in which a review by the committee of a child's death or serious injury can commence.

Through the legislative changes we progress today, rightly, this bill seeks to give the committee more flexibility as to when it can commence a review into a particular child death or serious injury, flexibility that is crucial to learning well and to acting and learning and changing practice as needed as quickly and effectively as we possibly can.

Subsection 37(5) in particular provides that the committee must not review a case of child death or serious injury unless a coronial inquiry has been completed, or the State Coroner requests the committee to carry out a review, or the State Coroner indicates that there is no present intention to carry out a coronial inquiry. This currently results in a significant amount of precious time passing after a child's death or serious injury before the committee can start its review, before it can do that work to help seek answers about possible change.

Our government believes that there is a crucial role for the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee in helping to prevent death and serious injury. It is for that reason that the committee should absolutely have the opportunity, of course with appropriate checks and balances, to review deaths and serious injury at an earlier time that provides us the best possible opportunity to consider effective change.

However, it is of course important that safeguards are also put in place so as to not compromise an existing investigation, inquiry or inquest. These include requiring that in such a case the committee consult with the State Coroner or the Commissioner of Police, as the case requires, providing that the committee must take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation and also enabling the Coroner or the commissioner to give directions to the committee as to the things they should or should not do in the course of the review if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

These are really sensible provisions, which also provide the opportunity for earlier recommendations to help prevent future deaths and serious injury of children and young people. The bill also rightfully ensures appropriate protections around information held by the committee. This is really important, as the committee must be enabled to go about its work independently and without any concern about their data, about that information they hold about a precious child or young person and the circumstances which led to the death or serious injury of that precious child or young person. The changes that we progress in this bill are sensible and centred around the steps our government is taking to do more to help ensure the safety of children and young people.

We are also doing other crucial work in this space. Alongside this change we discuss in this house today, the government has committed to establish an interagency child death review model as part of its detailed response to the child protection reviews and specifically observations made by Ms Kate Alexander in her important report entitled Trust in Culture.

Ms Alexander's report recognises the complexity absolutely inherent, the complexity and the risk inherent in child protection and family support work and the well-qualified and highly skilled people who work in child protection and family support, who turn up every single day to help keep children and young people safe, well, loved, cared for and nurtured.

Her report also acknowledges the significant progress that has been made by governments since the Nyland royal commission and calls for trust in that process. However, her report also calls for improvement for close consideration of our processes around how we examine things when things go wrong and hence through a $1.3 million funding commitment as part of the 2022-23 state budget the establishment and delivery of the interagency child death review model.

I will come back to that model, but I also want to say that since that report, Trust in Culture, which recommended the establishment and the funding of the interagency child death review model, other positive steps have been taken to learn from and respond to the Alexander report, including the appointment of a child protection expert group to help improve the quality of practice across the sector to review child death review models and to look into neglect, squalor and cumulative harm and how those particular complex deeply interconnected issues that families are experiencing are dealt with and how families are supported.

The group is chaired by the national leader in this field, Professor Leah Bromfield, who is also the Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection who just last week was rightly awarded South Australian Australian of the Year. Professor Bromfield is an extraordinary woman and I am deeply grateful that she shares her wisdom and expertise through her partnership with this government, with the Australian Centre for Child Protection (of which she is the Director) and also through our Child Protection Expert Group which we have established.

The Child Protection Expert Group sits alongside other groups that we have rightly established. It sits alongside our chief executive governance group, which brings together every chief executive across government who has a role to play in the child protection and family support system. This is another way alongside the changes we make today, alongside the interagency child death review panel that together across government we intend to drive deep, effective system change that genuinely helps to improve the lives of children and young people.

Alongside again the interagency child death review panel that has been funded and is being established, alongside our Child Protection Expert Group and our chief executive governance group, we have also rightly established our Direct Experience Group, which brings together brave families who have an experience with the child protection and family support system to provide advice to me as the minister, to provide advice through me to those groups about that experience of the system.

We have also established the Carer Council, which again is made up of those people who have a direct experience of being a foster or kinship carer. These people are extraordinary, and they are also adding to this system change that we are pursuing. We are pursuing it because we want to do everything that we can in a joined up way across government to drive change that makes a positive difference in the lives of children and young people.

As I said, one of those groups that is being established through that $1.3 million of funding is the interagency child death review model. This review model will sit alongside the existing child death review functions of CDSIRC. It was absolutely crucial in terms of how those two groups will work together.

It is absolutely crucial that, alongside this bill, this change that we enact today that ensures a much more timely and effective mechanism for CDSIRC to review those terrible instances of harm to children, we also have this broader infrastructure and ecosystem right across the child protection and family support system to make sure that we have a learning system, a system that examines, that fronts up when things go wrong and absolutely works across government and with community, with those with direct experience of the system, to drive change that makes a difference.

This is not an easy task, but our government is absolutely up to it. We will not shy away from this deeply complex challenge. Everything that we are putting in place is driving us toward that long-term vision for change. This bill is an incredibly important part of that system change, and I commend this bill to the house.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (17:17): I would like to thank all those members of this place who have made a second reading contribution, including just then the member for Reynell, the Minister for Child Protection, who has been around in government circles both as a member of parliament and minister but in her careers before she entered this place. She understands very well that this has been an issue for a very long time and one that we have not been able to resolve, unfortunately. That has been to the pretty acute frustration of a lot of people in this place, out of this place, the media but, most importantly, family members of the deceased children.

The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee investigates those deaths with a view to suggesting public policy changes, often changes that need to be made in this parliament, to prevent that kind of death from happening again, which is incredibly important work.

We often say that the wheels of government move very slowly, and they do, and things can often on the face of it sound simple and straightforward, and people shake their heads outside of this place around why the pace of change can be slow and why sometimes it feels as though we cannot get out of our own way to make simple changes. Although it has been slow, the truth is that when you read the advice that you are given from the agencies involved in the potential decision—in this case, for instance, South Australia Police or the Coroner, as well as the advice provided from the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee—you quickly understand the complexities that are involved, particularly around the risk to undermining an inquiry, a coronial one or otherwise, by having a concurrent investigation, which of course would be the absolute worst outcome.

If we can put ourselves in the shoes of the family of the deceased child for a moment, it is unimaginable the grief that you would deal with you if you lost a child in the first place, but if it was in circumstances where foul play or neglect was potentially involved, and you very much wanted to find out what or who may have been responsible for that, the last thing, of course, you would want in a situation like that is to have that coronial inquest compromised, or perhaps in some way invalidated because of a conflict that might arise with a concurrent investigation.

There are reasons, often once you scratch the surface, for why there are these kinds of idiosyncrasies in place, but nonetheless I am really pleased that this government has stuck at the issue and kept working with those agencies and, upon forming government in March 2022, revisited the idea of how we can find a way through this impasse with those agencies.

I would just like to place on the record again my thanks to not just the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee and all the members of that committee who do marvellous work—they are passionate people about the area of the public policy in which they work—but also the Coroner and the Coroner's office and SAPOL and the commissioner as well. They have really shown a willingness to find a way through this impasse, to find a way in the circumstances that are deemed to be appropriate. It is important I think that we have some exceptions to the rule, because the other kind of defining factor of investigations like this into the death of a child is that very regularly no two cases are the same.

It is impossible to take a pro forma approach to it, because the circumstances of the passing of the child are usually different, or the family's circumstances might be and that means that there does need to be a degree of oversight and the ability for those other agencies such as SAPOL and the commissioner, who may be dealing with criminal proceedings against an accused, and the Coroner and their office, who might be dealing with the coronial inquest into the death, to be able to step in and say that they think in this circumstance, or in the case of this child death, that having the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee conduct its inquiry, either concurrently or before—most likely concurrently with the coronial inquest—is not appropriate, because it would give a genuine rise to the risk of invalidating, compromising or undermining that coronial inquest.

That is, of course, incredibly important for a whole heap of reasons, as well as the SAPOL one, in terms of justice for the family of the child, which is an incredibly important thing, finding out what or whom was responsible and being certain about the circumstances of that child's death. Nonetheless, I think what we have in front of us here is an excellent piece of work and I am very pleased that we heard members opposite speak in support of it as well.

People are quick to criticise this place—and sometimes not without reason—when we tend to argue about all manner of things, but there are often occasions where we come together in a bipartisan way, and if we cannot do that on an issue of child death serious injury then there is little hope for us. I think it is great that we have found a bipartisan position here today to support this. I think it speaks to not only the willingness of people in this place to put differences aside on the really important issues but also of course to the integrity of what we are putting forward here.

So it is something that the parliament stands together in saying is a good thing and then when it comes to issues like this we will set aside political differences and work together for the betterment of the whole state. We have heard members of this place in their second reading contribution speak in a way I was really impressed by, because there was genuine empathy and passion for the topic, but particularly empathy for those who would have lost a child in those circumstances.

I think almost the most important characteristic of an effective parliamentarian is the ability to show empathy and put yourself in the shoes of the people that you represent because when you do that it does really actually strongly motivate you to take action and to pursue things in a dogged, stubborn, determined kind of fashion, which often you need to.

This change is one of the best examples of that, because we have been talking about this for more than 10 years, and we were not able to find a way through it. It would have been very easy just to set down tools and give up, but we did not do that, because at the end of the day you think about those people—and some of us know people who have been in the situation of losing a child, and we understand the devastating effect that has on the family, the siblings, the parents, the grandparents, and the wider community.

I see it in the school communities in the role I have as the Minister for Education. We are, too regularly, I am afraid, notified if a child passes away. It might be at the Women's and Children's Hospital School SA or a child elsewhere who has had a long-term illness who passes away. I take that opportunity wherever I am able and wherever it is appropriate to speak to the school principal or the preschool director to pass on my sympathies. It is always a real insight into the broader, wider effect that a child death can have that stays with people—for instance, their schoolfriends, particularly if the young person was at primary or secondary school—and the effect that that can have.

So I think these changes are overdue, but also I am pleased that we have managed to find a way here, where we have kept the integrity of the changes in terms of finding a way wherein I am sure in a lot of cases it will be appropriate or found to be appropriate by coroners and commissioners for an inquiry by the CDSIRC to commence while there might be something on foot from the Coroner.

Of course, what that will mean is that in those expert recommendations that the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee make—and I labour the point 'expert', because I have known both past and present members of that committee very well in some cases, and they are expert in their field. And the work in a lot of cases, too, is actually very technical in nature.

There is one that springs to mind that I might just mention. I think I recall this correctly from a long time ago. It was the tragic death in a swimming pool of a child, I think. There may even have been a bit of a spate of that. Recommendations by the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee, I recall, were around pool fencing and what, actually, was in effect very specific and technical recommendations by the committee around regulations governing what a pool fence needed to look like.

That was brought into sharp relief for me when I was talking to a family member who had been through the process of having pool fencing set up and having the council come out to make sure that it was certified so it could go ahead. It was an incredibly detailed process in which they came and physically inspected the pool fencing, pointed out inadequacies—areas in which kids could be able to get access to the pool over the fence—that resulted in changes that needed to be made.

As technical as that is, that results in young lives being saved through expert and technical work by a committee. I think it is a powerful example around why providing the committee with the ability to do its important work as early as we deem it possible and appropriate is the right thing to do, because what often flows from that investigation by the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee are very specific recommendations that are brought to a minister and perhaps ultimately brought to cabinet and, indeed, often wind up in this place where, if they pass, they form law. Of course, the sooner we do that the sooner we identify gaps in our systems that might endanger the lives of young people. We need to act.

We know the truth is that as time goes past and change is not made, what it does is increase the risk of a death of the same nature occurring again. Any death of course is a tragedy, but I think we would all agree it would be somewhat a failing of us in this place and this parliament not to use the power that is afforded to us to act when we can to prevent something like that from happening.

If this successfully passes this place—and if I am still in the role that I am lucky enough to enjoy now—I hope that we can provide some real and concrete examples once a case comes up, which of course would follow a tragedy unfortunately. Where a case would come up where the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee is able to commence an early investigation or inquiry, we can use that as an example of why these changes are so important and again highlight to the South Australian public as well, who might not have heard of CDSIRC (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) about the important work that they do and their service to our state in that role.

There are many people, some of whom are still members of the committee, some of whom are no longer members of the committee, who will feel a great sense of personal satisfaction should this pass, because they have been the ones in there championing a way of getting through this impasse, changing the law so they can do their work because they are passionate about their work. They do not want to be sitting on their hands when they feel like they could be starting their inquiry, making recommendations to government, seeing the law change and doing what they are all so passionately motivated to do, which is to prevent preventable deaths.

Again, I thank those who made a contribution, some of whom are still in this place. Again, I say I am pleased that we have had support from both sides of the chamber. The member for Morialta mentioned those fantastic people from the Public Service who have done all the hard yards here and the heavy lifting in terms of drafting legislation and doing the consultation work with SAPOL and the Coroner to get to a point where we have agreement. That has taken some time.

We have been working on this, I must say, for some time now. We really should pay tribute to those who have done the technical work and the consultation and those who are experts in their field of crafting legislation in a way that does not give rise to unintended consequences and does, for instance, what the police and the Coroner want the legislation to do, which is to properly provide them with the means of putting their hand up and saying that in this case it is not appropriate to have concurrent investigations to make sure the integrity of whatever investigation is already on foot, whether that be criminal proceedings through the South Australia Police or a coronial inquest, and to make sure that that integrity is maintained. I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (17:33):

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

I think I have traversed this ground pretty well now, but this is a very good example of what might seem like small and technical changes to a bill, which are not particularly long or complex but are really significant changes. I have no doubt at some stage, when they come into effect and are used or enlivened, that they will save the life of a child or children in South Australia.

Again, I just reiterate my thanks to those who did the work. So often we are critical or others outside this place are not without reason critical of governments inability to work together across agencies and across departments. This is a fantastic example of where we found a way through after impasse which lasted many, many years.

We have found a way where the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee can do its important work, with safeguards in place to allow coroners and police commissioners to step in if it is not appropriate, but to have concurrent investigations potentially running so that, if recommendations are to be made into how a child's death occurred, and something that could be put in place potentially by this parliament to prevent that from happening again, that can be done as soon as possible.

I thank all those people who did the technical work in bringing these changes to this place and who did a significant amount of consultation with those agencies I just mentioned to get their really important support. I reiterate that we would not be here today and I would not have brought this to this place if we had not had that agreement. Nonetheless, I commend the bill to the house. This is a piece of legislation of which we can all be proud.

Bill read a third time and passed.