Disability Services

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding disability services.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Are you quite finished, Hon. John Dawkins?

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: If you think this is a matter—

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —to be treated like that—

The PRESIDENT: Order! Order! The Hon. Leader of the Opposition, please ask your question.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Minister, what exactly are the state government's responsibilities for worker screening and participation safety under the NDIS bilateral agreement and the Intergovernmental Agreement on Nationally Consistent Worker Screening?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:37): We are responsible for providing worker screenings to those individuals who are required to have them. So anybody who works in disability services, where I think the terminology is that where they have more than incidental contact with a person with a disability either as a worker or as a volunteer, is required to have a screening check.

Ensuring that the individual has a screening check is the responsibility of their employer, so the DHS's responsibility in that regard is to receive the application, process the application. The application is sent to ACIC, which then promulgates that to all the other state and territory jurisdictions to check their police records to see if the person has a police record. It also goes through our state systems in terms of the child abuse system and any matters that may be there.

If there is information in there that needs to be assessed, then the screening unit will do what is called a more detailed assessment to determine whether that person poses a risk to working with people with disability or not, and following those determinations decides whether the person should be granted a screening application or not.