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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-15 Daily Xml
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Families SA Internal Audit

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): Is the minister suggesting that there is no need to review the pre-employment checks or the files to conduct a desktop audit for the other 1,500 Families SA staff that weren't part of Mal Hyde's desktop review?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development) (14:18): Sir, we currently have a royal commission underway looking into the operations of Families SA. Can I say, sir, we are not alone. These circumstances in relation to child protection are not unique to South Australia. Every state is grappling—every state is grappling with challenges in child protection, but we face up to the challenges here in South Australia. In Victoria—let me just tell you about Victoria—in Victoria—

Ms Chapman: What about South Australia?

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, sir. Well, if they do not want to hear about Victoria—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Finniss is called to order.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: If they don't want to hear about Victoria, sir, let me talk about South Australia. In South Australia, we introduced the Guardian for Children and Young People. In South Australia, we established the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee. In South Australia, we established the Council for the Care of Children. We established the Health and Community Services Complaints Commission.

We established two Mullighan inquiries. We provided funding to advocacy organisations like CREATE and Connecting Foster Carers. We increased the number of family-based carers to provide for children who cannot stay with their birth families. We increased the number of kinship carers by 700 per cent. Since 2002, we have gone from—

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: Point of order, member for Morialta.

Mr GARDNER: Unless the minister is indicating that all of these people are going to be subject to the desktop audit, she is now completely irrelevant to the question.

The SPEAKER: What was the question again?

Mr GARDNER: The question was whether the minister was saying that the desktop audit was unnecessary for the other Families SA staff.

The SPEAKER: Minister.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, sir. We have gone from 147 kinship placements in South Australia, in 2001 under the Liberals—and that is family members providing care for children—to 1,190 placements currently. We established a new incident management division in the department. We have a screening audit for educators.

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: The minister is offering information pertinent to the screening of other staff. Minister.

Mr GARDNER: I don't think that she is doing that. She hasn't indicated that any of these people are going to be screened at all.

The SPEAKER: The minister is offering information about what her department does. You may regard what they do as inadequate, but the minister is offering that information, which is in order.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: We have established a multiagency protection service. We have established the Strong Start program, helping first-time mums care for and protect their babies. We have had more than 100,000 universal contact visits since we introduced that program. We have established 41 children's centres. Each and every one of those people involved in one-on-one contact with children has criminal history checks and background screening checks.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister will not refer to the celebrated Mount Gambier kidney.

Members interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Sir—

The SPEAKER: I anticipate the point of order, and I will deal with it now. After I have acted, the deputy leader may or may not want to raise a point of order.

Ms Chapman: I will listen with interest, but I was coming to your defence.

The SPEAKER: The minister is called to order and warned a first time, not just for disorderly expressions such as referring to members in the second person but also for rising when she did not have the call and shouting across the chamber. Does that deal with the matter?

Ms CHAPMAN: Excellent ruling, sir.

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