Question Time

Child Protection

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of the Government a question about the children of South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It is now incontrovertible that this government has failed the children of South Australia. The opposition has known this for a long time, while the government has been in denial. It took a royal commission for the Premier to acknowledge the government's failings in the protection of children. South Australians have sat by helplessly and watched the Premier's failed egotistical experiment unfold, which saw him merge Families SA and the department of education. The Premier's shameful decision has resulted in the systematic failure of this crucial function.

The Premier created a department which oversaw a litany of disasters at the expense of South Australia's most vulnerable children. In 2011, after serving as education and child protection minister, the Premier thought it best to merge these two departments. Since the establishment of the Premier's super department there has been tragedy after tragedy, perhaps most notably was Chloe Valentine. After a Coroner's inquest, Coroner Mark Johns said, 'Nothing less than a massive overhaul of Families SA and its culture and training of its staff will be sufficient.' Yet these recommendations, sadly, fell on deaf ears. Then there was the shocking case of Shannon McCoole, a Families SA worker who committed an unspeakable list of offences against children in state care.

Finally, the Premier was forced to take his head out of the sand and call for a royal commission. However, this was too late for too many children in South Australia. Yesterday, Commissioner Nyland handed down an interim recommendation and told the Premier what we had been telling him for years. Commissioner Nyland said, 'It is clear from our investigation that Families SA needs to be completely overhauled.'

As elected representatives of the Parliament of South Australia, it is our role, first and foremost, to ensure the safety and security of all South Australians. The Premier has failed in what should have been his first and most important order of business and as a result, sadly, there are children who have paid the ultimate price, and he has put our state's most vulnerable people at risk.

My question to the minister is: how can the Leader of the Government in this place have confidence in a Premier who established and oversaw a department that was so systematically flawed that it put South Australia's most vulnerable children at risk and resulted in the death and abuse of children?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:22): I thank the honourable member for his question. As Commissioner Nyland has made interim recommendations and the government has accepted those recommendations, they are now being implemented and, quite frankly, I will not be playing politics with the issue of child protection: it is too important for that.