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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-22 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:09): My question is to the Premier. Why didn't the Premier take urgent action to separate education and child protection in 2015, when Coroner Mark Johns stated, in response to the death of Chloe Valentine:

Nothing less than a massive overhaul of Families SA and its culture and training of its staff will be sufficient.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:09): Well, he didn't recommend it. That's one thing and, secondly—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: We hear lots of things from the opposition. We tend to rely upon, though, the experts after they have heard all of the arguments for and against. In fact, if you read the interim recommendations, you will see that there has been a range of perspectives about the question of where child protection should be located. Some people believe it should be located in the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion; others think it should remain in the Department for Education and Child Development, and others think that it should be a stand-alone child protection agency.

Weighing up all the arguments, the commissioner made a recommendation, so we acted on that recommendation, rather than choosing. We knew we had a royal commission on foot. It was sensible for these submissions and those issues to go to that royal commission, and so the Coroner's report became an input into the royal commission. We are now at this stage, where an interim recommendation has been made and we have acted on it immediately.

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