Homelessness

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:35): Given the minister's answer that most relate to things such as fires and stabbings, why is she not aware of how many serious incidents, such as sexual assault or death, have occurred?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:36): The human services portfolio has quite a number of reportings in the critical incident system.

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: We're talking about sexual assault and death.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: If the honourable member casts her mind back to the areas I have talked about, particularly in relation to the disability services system, the threshold is quite low. The example I often use—and we were the ones who lowered the threshold in terms of critical incidents to ensure that, if one of our clients is grabbed by, for instance, a staff member, that is registered as a critical incident, and there may have been a couple of reasons for it.

One may well have been that the staff member was trying to prevent someone falling, in which case, if that was found through the process to have been the cause, then that would be a mitigating circumstance, but, if it was a staff member acting aggressively, that would continue to be considered a critical incident. We have quite a low threshold in terms of the incident management system across human services, and I do receive a number of reports. I don't have the data to hand on the exact number for every category.