House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-08-05 Daily Xml

Contents

Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:42): Does the minister believe that the employee was thoroughly vetted enough before being employed?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:42): These are issues we are going to be looking at. We have put legislation in place now that requires significant screening of people who work with children or who come in contact with children as volunteers in our department but also in other volunteer areas. Non-government organisations, sporting groups—they all have requirements about working with children.

Clearly, nothing is foolproof, but we are looking at all of our processes. Criminal history: you get that from SAPOL. The screening unit goes through very detailed processes in assessing child protection issues in relation to people here in South Australia. I can't give you the numbers, but I know that there are people who are rejected and are not allowed to work with children. They don't get a clearance. It is quite a strong preventive mechanism that we have in place.