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

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 August 2024.)

The Hon. J.S. LEE (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:22): I rise today on behalf of the Liberal opposition to indicate that we will be supporting the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024. The purpose of the bill is to make provisions to strengthen the work of the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body that contributes to the prevention of the death and serious injury of South Australian children.

The committee collects data on child deaths and serious injuries and their circumstances and causes, enabling it to analyse and gain an understanding of trends over time. The committee also reviews some deaths and serious injuries of children in more detail and might look for information from other agencies such as the Department for Education, SA Health, non-government organisations and private practitioners if they have provided services to the child or their family. This work places the committee in a unique position to recommend important legislative and administrative means to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Under the current law, individual focused reviews of specific cases may only commence once all other investigations, such as those undertaken by the police, the State Coroner or the courts, have concluded. In practice, the current provisions mean that there can be a significant amount of time after a child's death or serious injury before a committee can even begin its review.

This is a problem as it may decrease the potential impact the committee may have to improve child safety or to be in a position to introduce more timely safety measures to avoid harmful incidents that may be prevented. The purpose of this bill is to allow the committee to commence such reviews prior to the conclusion of other investigations, enabling more timely responses.

Appropriate safeguards remain in place to ensure that the committee does not get in the way of those investigations. The committee must consult with the State Coroner or the police commissioner, as appropriate, and the bill requires the committee to take all reasonable steps to avoid compromising the inquest, inquiry or investigation. Where relevant, the Coroner or police commissioner may also direct that the committee does, or refrains from doing, a particular thing in the course of a review if the Coroner or commissioner (as the case may be) is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromise to an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

The bill also includes express provision for the committee, SA Police and the State Coroner to share information for the purposes of determining whether to commence a review or in carrying out a review. There are also provisions for the protection of information held by the committee and to extend the existing protections in the FOI Act, which are consistent with the current provisions in the act.

This committee is made up of extremely well-regarded professionals from a range of fields, including legal, medical, education and social work. The sorts of incidents that lead to reviews are incredibly tragic and distressing for the families and friends of a child who has died and for the communities around them.

Due to the potential for lengthy and complicated police or coronial investigations, the reviews must often take place a long time after the incidents themselves, meaning that there are frequently lengthy delays before the committee recommendations come to the attention of the relevant ministers. Recommendations from such reviews have, over time, provided useful public policy responses that governments have adopted in the interests of the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.

Sometimes, due to extended time delay, departmental internal reviews have already led to the implementation of responses that are subsequently retrospectively endorsed by the committee; on other occasions the committee may make recommendations that are then adopted by departments. In either case, it is vital that more flexibility be given to the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee so that where appropriate it can commence a review earlier than what is currently permitted. This would allow for more timely provision and consideration of the committee's recommendations.

Provided the State Coroner and the South Australian police commissioner are satisfied with the protections set out in the bill, the opposition supports the improvements, which appear to provide for better decision-making and help to improve the safety and wellbeing of our young people and children in South Australia. With those remarks, I commend the bill.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:28): I rise to speak in support of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024 on behalf of the Greens. The death or injury of a child is always a terrible tragedy. It is vital that we do as much as we can in the prevention of child death and injury in our state.

The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee is tasked with preventing death and injury of children. They are an independent oversight and advocacy body which review the circumstances of child death and injury. They then provide recommendations about measures that could lead to further prevention.

I understand there have been some barriers to effective and efficient handling of these reviews and that this bill aims to address those. Currently, when there is a review of a child death or serious injury, the committee is required to wait until the end of any coronial inquest. This can result in delays of up to five years after the death of a child, by which time it is more difficult for the committee to investigate and this can result in a delay in prevention measures being recommended and, indeed, put in place.

This bill allows the committee to undertake these investigations in parallel with any coronial inquest and sets out important safeguards to preserve the integrity of that process. The bill also allows the minister to refer individual cases to the committee. The Greens consider that these are sensible measures and support this bill in the hope that it can lead to more prevention of child deaths and injuries in our communities.

The Hon. S.L. GAME (16:29): I rise briefly to offer in principle support for the government's Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024; however, I also express some concern about potential issues with transparency and accountability.

The stated aim of the bill is to enhance the ability of the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to protect vulnerable children and it is agreed that the measures, which allow the committee to commence investigations early in the process, may well prevent some tragedies from occurring in the future. However, any internal coordination and consultation between the committee, the Coroner and the police commissioner will not be fully transparent to the public, which could ultimately reduce accountability.

In addition to this, the bill exempts the committee's documents from freedom of information requests and this could limit public access to vital information and reduce transparency about how government department decisions are made. In this way, there is limited scrutiny of the committee's work, which can undermine the public trust in the committee's findings and recommendations. Further to this, the bill prevents the committee from being compelled to provide evidence or documents, and while this provision protects sensitive information, it also risks limiting external accountability and it could make it harder for the public or legal bodies to assess whether the committee is truly effective in its role.

Consequently, I do welcome and support this bill's intention to improve child safety by enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of the review committee but am somewhat concerned that these new powers are not accompanied by strengthening measures to improve transparency and accountability.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:31): I rise to speak in support of the Children and Young People (Oversight and Advocacy Bodies) (Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee) Amendment Bill 2024. As we have heard, the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee was established in 2006 with the critical task of reviewing tragic cases to help prevent future harm to children.

It is vital, of course, that this committee can act quickly and effectively to identify issues and implement improvements, rather than waiting for years for the conclusions of a Coroner's inquest or criminal investigation. Sadly enough, we have heard of more instances of deaths than any of us wish to recount and what also certainly does not help is having to wait for those outcomes.

The current legislation limits the committee from reviewing such cases, creating delays in the implementation, of course, of very necessary safety reforms when it comes to children, and the bill addresses that issue by allowing the minister to refer a case to the committee despite it being the subject matter of an ongoing Coroner's investigation or police investigation. Importantly, it includes safeguards to ensure that the committee's work does not interfere with those processes, which is critical.

Further, the bill expands the ability of the State Coroner and SA Police to share information with the committee, ensuring that it has access to all relevant details when reviewing a case. This has been an ongoing issue in this area when it comes to cross-agency sharing of information that relates to children and families who are the subject of these sorts of reviews and one that I understand the minister is working towards completely addressing. In my view, it has taken us a long time to get to this point, but I am glad that we are getting closer through this measure, but it is one that certainly needs to be addressed wholly sooner rather than later, in my view.

The bill also seeks to extend the committee's exemptions from FOI requests to documents prepared by the committee held by other agencies. This does strengthen the confidentiality necessary for the committee to carry out its work. It raises, though, in my view, a broader question in terms of the oversight of this committee remaining under the Minister for Education or whether that should be placed under the Minister for Child Protection, given the clear crossover between child deaths and the child protection system. I make that point as it is one we should be very mindful of in terms of these considerations.

I note, of course, the historical context of where agencies sit, dating back to 2016 and the Nyland review, and the need to separate Families SA from Education, but of course subsequent changes in relation to child protection are also sitting outside the scope of that, so there is still a bit of a mishmash there. Whilst the reasons for the changes were very pertinent at the time, I think they warrant further clarity, particularly when it comes to this bill sitting under the education portfolio.

In October 2022, I lodged an FOI request with the Department for Child Protection seeking information on the number and ages of children under the care or supervision who had died, and the results were alarming. There were 58 children who had been known to the DCP dying between 2019 and 2022, eight of whom were living in state care. That disclosure ignited an ongoing media campaign for greater transparency and accountability, and it is clear that more needs to be done in this area.

Just recently, and following on from discussions that many of us have been subject to, the Chief Executive of DCP, Jackie Bray, confirmed that 11 children known to the department had died in 2023-24—children who were either under guardianship or involved with the department due to safety concerns.

We have been promised, and there are commitments on the record now, that the number of these tragics deaths will now be included in the department's annual report, which is a step towards greater transparency, but in my view, given the issues that we have just talked about, particularly in relation to FOIs and the need to actually go down the path of lodging an FOI to get release of that sort of information, and also having to wait for a coronial inquest to be completed, at which time we will know everything surrounding a child's death, I am not satisfied with an annual reporting mechanism. It is a step in the right direction.

Of course there are privacy issues at stake but certainly these, for my part, will be the subject of further discussion because details such as the ages of children, the cause of death and the reasons for their involvement with the department are details that, at this stage, are not going to be, as I understand it, included in that disclosure. Clearly, we need to do more in this space in terms of those disclosures. These are very much in the public interest and we cannot afford to be waiting for FOIs to be lodged with departments before we find out what the true state of those numbers is, however harrowing they may be for all of us.

With those concerns in mind, I may ask some questions, depending on the feedback we get from the minister during the committee stage, and seek more clarity on these matters, but I indicate my support for this bill as a step forward in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of South Australian children.

The Hon. M. EL DANNAWI (16:37): I rise to speak in support of the bill. The death of a child is an incomprehensible tragedy in all circumstances. The Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee does the important but heartbreaking work of collecting data on the circumstances and causes of child death and serious injury and analysing it. Accurate information and data collection is essential to prevention; that is a fact.

In some of these tragic cases, time is of the essence, and the ability of the committee to start their investigation in a timely manner will impact their potential to improve child safety through their review and recommendations. This bill aims to grant the committee more flexibility regarding when it can commence a review. Currently, the committee may not review a case unless a coronial inquiry has already been completed, the Coroner requested the committee carry out a review, or the Coroner indicates that there is no present intention to carry out a coronial inquiry.

The bill allows the committee to commence a review into a case that is the subject of an ongoing coronial inquest or inquiry of criminal investigations. The Attorney-General outlined some of the safeguards present in the bill to combat any potential compromise to an investigation, inquiry or inquest in his second reading speech, which I will refer to. The bill provides safeguards by:

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, injury 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 during the review, if the Coroner or the commissioner is of the opinion that such a direction is necessary to avoid compromising an inquest, inquiry or investigation.

In support of this cooperation, the bill will permit South Australia Police, the State Coroner and the committee to share information for the purposes of determining whether to commence a review or in the carrying out of a review.

The nature of these investigations is extremely sensitive and as such any information gathered must be treated carefully. The bill will provide that a person cannot be compelled to give evidence of matters that are made known to them as a member or staff of the committee. Under this bill they also cannot be compelled to produce a document prepared or made for the purposes of a review or through the work of the committee, or provide any information that became known to them in the course of a review. I thank the committee for the difficult but necessary investigations they carry out and commend this bill to the chamber.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (16:40): I thank honourable members for their contributions on this important bill. I note there may be questions during the committee stage, and I look forward to answering those and the speedy passage of this bill, hopefully later this afternoon.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: I am wondering whether the Attorney can perhaps provide some clarity around why it is that this committee does sit under Education and not Child Protection. That would be good.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: My advice is that this probably could sit reasonably comfortably under a number of different ministers. It does not just collect information in relation to deaths of children in state care, but very broadly and that is why it sits with the minister it sits with.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: As part of the discussions that have taken place in relation to this particular issue, noting of course that not all children who will be reported here have contact with DCP, aside from the FOI provisions, are there other mechanisms to ensure the sharing of information between the committee, Education and DCP where appropriate and where there are children who have had contact with more than one of those agencies?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I am advised that, yes, there is. There are provisions specifically under this bill about sharing the information and the general provisions that apply across government for information-sharing principles and guidelines.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Further to that, will this also be the subject of further work the Minister for Child Protection is doing to ensure better sharing of access across agencies when it relates specifically to children who are in contact with DCP?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I do not have specific advice, because we do not have that department advising, but what I can say is that as a general proposition I know the Minister for Child Protection, the Hon. Katrine Hildyard, is always looking for ways to improve the system as much as possible.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Just finally, and I am not sure if I missed this, proportionally speaking is there some indication of how many children who are the subject of the reviews under this bill do actually have contact with DCP?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I thank the honourable member for her question. I am advised we do not have that on hand. If it is possible I am happy to undertake to go away and, if we can find that information, provide it to the honourable member at a later time.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 5) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (16:46): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.