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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-08-06 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Will the minister restate her support of child protection remaining within the education department in light of the Premier's recent comments that he is now prepared to consider moving it, if recommended by the upcoming royal commission?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:31): Of course—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Of course, as we often hear with questions from the Leader of the Opposition, they involve a misleading verballing of the government in the course of the explanation for the question. No such thing, in fact, occurred. What did occur was, in answer to questions that were raised with me (presumably at the behest of the opposition, which has been promoting this idea of the splitting up of the agency), I said, as I have made clear from the start, that given the nature and extent of these issues all our assumptions need to be tested.

I do not see any rational relationship, frankly, between the splitting of the agency and any of the events we are currently looking at but, as we often see in this child protection space, whenever there is a crisis people pull out whatever agenda they seem to have as their pet project and suggest that that is the answer the question. I must say that I rarely see the idea of the one single solution, the silver bullet somehow being the solution to what is a very complex area, as ever being a very persuasive argument.

For those who are interested, the bringing together of the Department for Education and Child Development was a conscious step to bring together relevant education, health care, protection and child development services within one agency so that we could consider, rather than a series of disconnected services, the whole of our service system from the perspective of the child. That is something that finds support within a national document, the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children, and a number of very significant child protection experts around the nation have called for this very approach. I think it is a good approach, and it is something that I stand by.

Notwithstanding that, we are prepared to subject all of our assumptions to the most stringent scrutiny, and I have said that this is a matter that could be ventilated if those who wish to do so choose to do so within the context of the royal commission. I am not presently persuaded, but if people can put a cogent argument, and it finds favour with the royal commissioner and is recommended, that is obviously something we will give consideration to.

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