Parliamentary Committees

Select Committee on Statutory Child Protection and Care in South Australia

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:19): I move:

That the Interim Report of the Select Committee on Statutory Child Protection and Care in South Australia, be noted.

On 21 May 2014 the Legislative Council appointed the select committee to inquire into and report on statutory child protection and care. The first report of this committee was to focus on the management of foster care, and this is the interim report that I am now pleased to table. Supporting our children to develop and protecting them from harm is one of the most sacred duties of our families, our communities and our institutions.

One of the most disturbing elements of the history of child protection and care in South Australia, and for that matter through the western world, is the fact that so often children removed from their biological families because of concern, proven abuse or harm go on to experience harm in the system that is designed to protect them. We have heard some horrific evidence about direct harm or abuse through the royal commission, but even when efforts towards care are well intentioned, they often have negative impacts.

For example, it is well established empirically that a child's prospects for healthy development, if they are in care, are substantially undermined if they experience multiple placements. One of the problems we have in our care regime is that, if the system is too quick to move children, if efforts are not made to do what we can to provide stable and healthy placements that are long-term, there is significant risk that the children in care will experience harm on an ongoing basis.

In relation to foster carers in particular, the inquiry found that foster carers often feel undervalued, not supported and not trusted by Families SA, and they are often reluctant therefore to raise issues or identify problems in case those problems are used against them as an indication of an inability to cope. The committee found that Families SA tends to not prefer foster care. This creates management issues. From the outset, Families SA, in the view of the committee, tends to direct effort towards keeping a family unit together, when it may well be in the best interests of the child for other arrangements to be made.

In this context the committee heard of a number of cases of unexpected and unexplained placement terminations. As I said in my comments earlier, that may well not be in the interests of the child, but it also creates bitterness amongst foster carers and contributes to carers exiting the foster care system, which actually makes it more difficult to place children in stable homes.

The committee found that there is an imbalance of decision making power between Families SA and carers, and considered that accountability should enhance the quality of decision making in the form of independent reviews and that independent reviews of Families SA decisions would be in the interests of children.

A total of 40 recommendations were put forward by the committee over a range of areas, including kinship care, foster care and providing information to foster carers, and there was an overview of world's best practice. The government's response when the report was released was informal, through the media, but at least it was positive. The government did say that it was open to good ideas from wherever they come, and I think the relevant ministers encouraged the committee to refer the report to the Nyland royal commission. The committee's next task will be to take on the next reference that the Legislative Council has given to us, which is to undertake an overview of the implementation of other reports that have been tabled.

As Chair, I would like to thank those who contributed to the report: the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Hon. John Gazzola, the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars and the Hon. Jing Lee. When I say 'contributed', the Hon. John Gazzola and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars withdrew on 18 June. I would like to particularly thank the Hon. John Darley and the Hon. Tammy Franks for joining the committee at that stage, and I would certainly want to acknowledge the diligence with which they embraced the duties of the committee. They were very active participants in the latter stage of the hearings and also in the preparation of the reports.

I thank those who support us from the staff, the secretary being Anthony Beasley, and the research officer, Ms Lynette Mollard. The professional skills of Ms Mollard, in particular, in terms of assessing the evidence and preparing the report, were deeply valued by the committee. She showed a real capacity to both compassionately understand the issues that were being raised but to assess them in the context of what needed to be done in a policy and legislative sense.

Of course, most of all, we thank those who made submissions to the committee. There were 82 written submissions and 28 expressions of interest to appear before the committee. The committee met on six occasions to hear evidence from a total of 15 witnesses. Much of the evidence that was provided to us was provided by people who had experienced trauma (a word I cannot go past when describing their experience) by being involved in the foster care system. Many of the issues were very sensitive, and we are indebted to those who were willing to share their experiences, including negative ones, in the hope that things could be better.

I commend the report to the house. I know that there is legislation before the house at the moment to try to improve the statutory child protection and care regime. I have no doubt that within the parliamentary career of every member of this chamber, even the young Kelly Vincent, we will continue to be grappling with getting the statutory child protection care system right. It has been something with which our nation has experienced endemic failure. It will not be fixed overnight. We need to be diligent and cooperative. I am keen that this parliament move back to a bipartisan discussion on moving forward. The withdrawal of the government members from this committee was disappointing. The fact of the matter is that we will always have a robust debate on issues such as this, but we need to have a bipartisan shared commitment to developing shared solutions.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. K.L. Vincent.