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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-06 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister update the house on the government's commitment to establishing a commissioner for children and young people in South Australia following the Layton report recommendation?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:20): Yes, I can, although I suspect that the leader is fully aware of what I am about to say, which may, in fact, breach the question of what is publicly available and therefore shouldn't be asked about. The opposition spokesperson whom I have been dealing with is Stephen Wade in the other place and, once I took on this role three or so months ago, he and I discussed, leading up to the first week of parliament, the importance of coming to a resolution about what will be in that piece of legislation.

There is a difference of view, which is essentially, I think, a difference in emphasis on the extent to which this would be another ombudsman, another investigative authority—and bear in mind that other states do not have investigative powers and that a lot of the feedback we have had from various stakeholders was not to include that because we would be creating yet another investigative body that would duplicate the work done by others; nonetheless, also recognising the very sincerely held view by the honourable member in the other place and some of the crossbenchers that they desired to see something along those lines, we were engaging in discussion about what kind of accommodation we could reach.

I raised with him that it occurred to me that we have a royal commission that will be advising us on the child protection system and that we might be unwise to bring in another institution which has a role to play in that child protection system without determining whether the royal commissioner might be forming views that would influence that piece of legislation. The honourable member indicated to me that it was reasonable to ascertain that, so I asked Justice Nyland, who furnished me with a letter saying that, indeed, she did think she would be bringing back advice as part of her recommendations that would not only touch on the role of the commissioner but other allied roles. We have a number of institutions that seem to fit around child protection, and she thought that she would probably want to come back with some advice on that.

I discussed that with the honourable member in the other place and indicated to him that I would therefore hold the legislation until that was the case. Such was, I felt, the agreement that we had between us that this was a reasonable approach that I shared the press release I was sending with him and I adjusted a sentence to reflect more accurately something that he wanted to see. I was surprised, then, to see that there was some criticism from the other side about what I thought was a reasonable approach. I accept that people are impatient and would like to see progress occur. What I don't want to see is that we—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Well, it has been three months for me, and what I would like to do is make sure that when we bring in—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I call to order the leader.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: What I would like to do is make sure that, when we bring in a brand-new institution, we do it as wisely as we can, without feeling that within a year we would need to alter that act. As I say, I understand that was something that was perceived to be a reasonable position, and I certainly have enormous faith in Justice Nyland to give us useful advice on how to do that.

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