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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-10 Daily Xml
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CHILD PROTECTION

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Families and Communities. Why does the government prevent people from assisting to keep vulnerable children safe by refusing to allow them to make legitimate child abuse notifications via email?

The opposition has been informed that the 131 478 child abuse hotline is often engaged for very lengthy periods; sometimes hours. In some circumstances this results in teachers and other employees having to take time away from work in order to wait on the end of the phone line to make a report. I am further informed that, instead of allowing people to make a notification via email, which would be convenient and is available in Western Australia, people are told to either wait or call back.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (15:02): This issue has been raised with me on a couple of occasions, particularly by teachers. The child abuse report line does have periods during the day in which the volume of calls coming in is increased significantly, and that often is at the end of the school day. My understanding is that we do in fact have a process whereby both police officers and teachers can make lodgements with the department via an email system.

Let's be clear. These are not two-minute conversations that people are required to have. They are very often lengthy and complex conversations. I am very happy to get some—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Bragg, you have asked a question. Listen to the answer.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: I am very happy to get some clear detail for the member for Bragg in relation to waiting times. We also know that you can't always take on face value the things that are brought up in this place. Let me just make reference perhaps to some quotes that were made in this house yesterday.

Now, I am not going to say that the house was misled, because that would take a vote of the house, and I am happy to let people make their own judgements about that. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition read a quote from a media release in 2007, and said:

...a transitional accommodation project, for which the government has earmarked $9 million in resources—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Point of order, the member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: I am struggling—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: I am struggling to understand the relevance of this to the question that was asked.

The SPEAKER: Order! We really haven't got into that yet. We are waiting to hear what the minister has got to say, then I can judge.

Mr WILLIAMS: I think we know what the minister's doing.

The SPEAKER: You can't have a point of order—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! You can't have a point of order until we know what it is about. You cannot raise that when we do not know what she is going to say.

Mr WILLIAMS: The question is about the reporting of children who have been abused and the minister—

The SPEAKER: Order, sit down! I will listen very carefully to what the minister has to say, and I am sure it will be relevant to the debate; if not, she will sit down.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is about trust, it is about whether you can believe what people say or not. It is about whether you can believe what they say.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: The Leader of the Opposition said:

...a transitional accommodation project, for which the state government—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —has earmarked $9 million in resources [comma]—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: The bit she left off after the comma was:

...and is calling on the commonwealth to contribute a further $9 million to complete the plan.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I think the minister—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: She left that bit off.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, sit down, member for MacKillop!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has strayed from the point of the question. We will go onto the next question.

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