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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-05-06 Daily Xml
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APY LANDS INQUIRY

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:54): My question is again to the Minister for Families and Communities. Will the minister advise whether his department will now change its record-keeping process to ensure that notifications of child abuse made to Families SA officers are recorded in a way that identifies whether the subject of the notification is from the APY lands? When I asked the minister in July last year how many of the reported cases were from APY lands, his response was:

The APY lands is located in the service area of the Families SA Coober Pedy District Centre. Families SA data systems therefore include data on the APY lands with all areas of the Cooper Pedy District Centre.

Further, of the 250 notifications of alleged abuse or neglect, only two were confirmed child sexual abuse cases, and the minister could not identify if even these two were from the APY lands. Recommendation 38 of Mr Mullighan's report tabled today states that all particulars of all allegations of child sexual abuse on the lands must be accurately recorded and provided to the Sex Crimes Investigation Branch of SA Police.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability, Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management) (14:56): At least, since this government has been in office, they have had somewhere to report them and someone there who could do the reporting. There were no police, no child protection workers on the lands during the previous government, when we came into office. What a shameful state of affairs. In fact, the remarks by Commissioner Mullighan that were contained in that section, if I have read them correctly, were actually dealing with the questions of reporting generally over the period at which he was looking, and included the period during which there was almost no activity.

Can you imagine? The most remote community in this state, on any view of it a community that has the lowest socioeconomic status. If they had even the faintest notion of even a rumour they would have turned their attention to it, but instead of saying, 'Well, I'm concerned about this part of South Australia, concerned about these particular citizens, we shall look at it further', they actively prevented the Aboriginal Parliamentary Lands Standing Committee from even meeting and travelling to this part of South Australia. So don't come in here and point fingers at us, do not even dare to come in here and point a finger at us about our activities in relation to this community. In his report Commissioner Mullighan has documented that this situation has been growing over 35 years. He also notes that almost nothing occurred until four years ago. We will look carefully at each of these recommendations.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: We have taken what, in our view, are the most serious of them and have responded today. However, we will look at each of those recommendations and will respond with all urgency.

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