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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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No-confidence Motion

Premier Weatherill

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:30): I move:

That this house has no confidence in the Premier in light of his failure to protect the most vulnerable South Australians.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:30): I move:

That time allotted for debate be one hour.

Motion carried.

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:30): Nobody has ever said that child protection is an easy portfolio. It is not an easy portfolio in South Australia. It is not an easy portfolio in any other jurisdiction around Australia or anywhere else in the world, but let's be quite clear: when Margaret Nyland brought down her interim report yesterday, her recommendations did not say that this is a difficult portfolio being managed well. She said that the system in South Australia was in crisis. These are incredible words from the royal commissioner appointed by this Premier. He would have us believe this is a difficult portfolio but they are doing a good job, but nothing could be further from the truth, and the royal commissioner has made that clear in her interim findings presented to the Premier this week.

There is one person above all others in this parliament, and quite possibly above all others in this entire state, who has been inextricably linked to our child protection system and failures here in South Australia. The Premier was elected to this parliament in 2002 and he has had a seat at the cabinet table every day since. In 2004, he became the minister for child protection, and for the vast majority of his time in this parliament he has been the minister for child protection, the minister for education or the Premier of South Australia, so ultimately he must take responsibility for the very obvious failures which have now been uncovered and reported in the royal commission.

In 2011, when the Premier assumed this office, he announced his signature reform, which was to move the child protection agency into the education department. This raised eyebrows at the time. Nobody saw this coming because it was not a recommendation of the Layton report. It was not a recommendation of the Mullighan inquiry. There was no specific recommendation that the Premier should embark upon this. This was his own idea.

He went over to Oxfordshire, looked at their system and he thought, 'This is what I want here in South Australia,' and off his own bat he decided to make one of the most substantial changes to child protection that this state has ever seen, and now that decision has been shown to be manifestly inadequate, a major mistake, and has put the children of South Australia at risk. Yesterday, the royal commissioner made it clear: we are in crisis in South Australia in child protection.

South Australia has weathered other crises. They have had political crises. They have had financial crises, the most obvious amongst those, of course, was the State Bank crisis which hit South Australia, and I think it is useful to reflect on what happened in that situation. In that situation, the government of the day had multiple warnings from the opposition in South Australia and from many other commentators, and at every opportunity they dismissed those warning bells that had been given to the government.

Ultimately, when the royal commission came down and said that the government's failure to address the obvious issue had put South Australia in a very, very difficult catastrophic financial situation, what did the Premier of the day do? I will tell you what he did. He apologised to the people of South Australia. He took responsibility and he resigned as the Premier of this state.

South Australia suffered a significant financial loss as a direct result of the Labor government's maladministration during that period of time, as reflected in the royal commissioner's findings, but these were financial losses. Let's be quite serious about this. The only reason that this issue of child protection has been brought to the notice of the people of South Australia is that children have died. Children have died in South Australia because our systems have been in a state of failure for an extended period of time.

Let's not forget that in 2004 the minister of the day, none other than the Premier today, said that the system was in crisis but, do not worry, he was going to fix the leadership and fix the culture. Fast-forward 12 years down the track and we have exactly the same situation, and this Premier has been inadvertently involved every single step of the way. Here is the problem: the people of South Australia have lost complete and utter confidence in this government and this Premier's ability to sort out this most important of portfolios, and what has he done? He has done nothing whatsoever to build that confidence of the people in South Australia.

The Premier's responses to the recommendations handed down yesterday were nothing short of appalling. They were completely unacceptable. They were disingenuous. What we have had, ever since those recommendations were handed down, were merely-mouthed half apologies with a whole pile of caveats that were added onto the end of those apologies, and this has angered the people of South Australia because they expect more.

They expect more of a government than to care more about their own political survival than they do about the most vulnerable people in our society. Sir, I put it to you that you can judge a government based upon how they treat the most vulnerable in our society and, sir, this is a bad government. This is a bad Premier who has put their own political survival ahead of the most vulnerable people in our society.

The Premier, calling and goading, if you like, the opposition to lay out the case before the parliament, says that we should have done this yesterday. Well, there was an obvious response by the government to the royal commissioner's recommendations yesterday, and they were outlined, but ever since then, at every single opportunity that has been provided to this Premier, he has not taken the opportunity to provide a full, unreserved apology and take responsibility.

His response has essentially been to say, 'This is a massive problem. It is a massive problem everywhere,' or, 'This is somebody else's fault. Somebody else killed these children. It was not my fault.' Yet every other independent inquiry said that there were major problems with the culture, major problems with the leadership and major problems with the systems here in South Australia—the resources and culture. As Dr McFetridge, the member for Morphett, says often to me, the buck stops with ministerial accountability, and the government now has an opportunity to set this right and for the Premier to take responsibility.

How has he spent his time in parliament today? You would think that, given the comments by the royal commissioner, he would come in and say, 'This was a grave and serious mistake. I made that mistake, and I am sorry to the people of South Australia.' Is that what he did today? Absolutely not. Let me tell you what he has done. For most of his time in question time today he has been advocating for the model which has been shown, independently, to be broken and to put the most vulnerable children in South Australia in danger. He has been in here telling us about people who advocate for it. He has been telling us about the virtues of the system which he put in place, which now has been found, unequivocally, to be broken.

We need to see some ministerial responsibility. We need to see somebody taking responsibility for the situation that we find ourselves in here in South Australia. We need somebody who is going to be able to take on the responsibility to restore the confidence that the people of South Australia need to have in their child protection system. There is just no way that this man can now be responsible for sorting out the mess, the absolute mess, the dangerous mess, which is this agency.

Let's not forget he has already told us on many occasions he has solved the problem. In 2004, he solved the problem. In 2011, he solved the problems. How many warning signs does this Premier need? When we know that the system is broken and we know that we have to move child protection from this agency, the Premier spends his time in the parliament today advocating why it was a good idea to have it in the education department. There is no way that this Premier can stay in this position and advocate for the solution. He is the problem.

It is not just the problem associated with where the agency is, it is not just the culture, it is not just the leadership, but we have the incredible situation presented to this parliament and the people of South Australia by this Premier to have two separate ministers responsible for the same portfolio which is in crisis. There is massive confusion as to who should be answering questions, there is massive confusion as to who should be taking responsibility in this state. This is a real problem presided over, again, by the architect of the flawed system, none other than our Premier here in South Australia.

If you need any more evidence as to why this Premier is completely and utterly unacceptable to continue in this role, take a look at his ducking and diving over the issue of the Commissioner for Children and Young People in this state. South Australia shamefully remains the only jurisdiction in the nation without this independent person to protect our most vulnerable. It was a recommendation of the 2003 Layton report. Following the Debelle inquiry report, I remember the minister of the day standing on the steps of parliament assuring the media, assuring the parliament that we would have a commissioner for children and young people by the end of 2013. Well, here we are in 2016 and there has been little progress.

Can I just say that those on this side of the house have been working diligently on this. We have already sought the support of the crossbenchers in the Legislative Council and we have passed a bill which could be on for debate in this house this afternoon, yet this government says, 'We don't want to debate this until 2017.' They do not like our model which puts extra protection in for the most vulnerable people in South Australia. They want this toothless tiger that is going to be able to do little to protect our children here in South Australia. They want the delay tactic of establishing a royal commission to report years and years after the crimes have been committed rather than taking immediate action with a commissioner with real teeth.

There is no doubt in my mind that we have a very serious problem here in South Australia, and it is not just a problem with child protection. It is a problem with our democracy and it is a problem with this government failing at any single opportunity to take responsibility for the perilous situation that they have put the people of South Australia in. Today, we need the Premier to do the honourable thing. We need him to restore the dignity of the office of the Premier of South Australia. Do the right thing and resign.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:43): The central question of the debate today is a question of character, and it is not just a question of the character of the Premier. It is a question of the character of the Leader of the Opposition as well.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition was heard in silence.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: This question of character will be a critical issue at the next election, and I invite members of the opposition backbench to reflect—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

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

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I invite members of the opposition backbench to reflect on the character of the Leader of the Opposition and the importance of the central question when it comes—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

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

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: —to the 2018 election when the people of South Australia—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: —will be making their own judgements on this issue. Let's start with—

Mr Wingard: Child protection.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: —the Premier.

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

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: There is no doubt that government is challenging and nowhere more so than in the area of child protection. If there is anything I can agree with in what the Leader of the Opposition said today, we certainly agree on that. There is no area that is more fraught. You are talking about decisions that child protection workers have to make day in, day out—the heartbreaking decision of whether to remove a child from a family.

In the decision to remove a child from a family, there is no panacea. There is no great outcome. We know very well what happens to children who are removed from their families and the outcomes are not necessarily great. Making that terrible decision to remove a child from his or her family is not some sort of solution to a problem but, rather, the least worst outcome and these are the difficult decisions these workers are having to make every day. These are difficult decisions and, of course, resources will always be limited, such will be the demand.

Last decade, the Premier in government has spent the best part of his political career grappling with these issues. When others would run a hundred miles away from these difficult issues and from grappling with these difficult issues, what are we seeing? The Premier has spent the best part of his political career dealing with these issues and tackling them head-on. There are plenty of others in political life who would not want to go near the child protection portfolio, but the Premier has been willing to deal with it and seek out reform to seek better outcomes for these children.

Let's just quickly go back to 1997 when I first came into parliament. Much has been made about child protection being put into the Department for Education and Children's Services and the Premier has well canvassed his thoughts and reasons for wanting to do that. I remember when I came into this place in 1997, child protection was not moved into the Department for Education where at least that was some policy rationale for doing that. No. It was moved into a mega department of human services, a much bigger department than the Department for Education. It was talked of as a mega department.

What was the rationale for doing that? The rationale was not that this was going to lead to better outcomes for children or better cross-agency cooperation. It was to appease the ego of an aggrieved Dean Brown. That was the only reason it was done. It was entirely a quick political fix because the then government, the Liberal Party—

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is on two warnings.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is warned.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: The Liberal Party had been brought to the brink of losing government in only one term and Dean Brown needed to be appeased. An angry Dean Brown needed to be appeased so, instead of putting child protection into an agency where at least there was some rationale for it, it was done purely for political convenience. When this government came into office in 2002, that was a mess that we had to untangle. We had to untangle the mess that had been created by the previous government purely as a quick, political fix.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell is warned.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Let's just go through some of the things we did see and some of the things we have seen. One of the first things we did was the Layton review. We established the Layton review, the biggest review of child protection in the state's history, a root and branch review of what was going wrong in child protection under the previous government and how it could be improved. We more than doubled the number of positions in what was then called family and youth services, more than doubled the professional care and protection workforce of that particular agency. We almost trebled funding to Families SA, such that its budget now is $325 million, an increase from $90 million when we came to office.

We disentangled the mess that had been created as result of a political fix by the then government. We massively increased the size of the workforce and we massively increased the funding to that particular agency to deal with this fraught area. In any area of reform, when a government undertakes reform there are going to be times when things do not go as you would wish. The test of political character is your willingness to front up and take accountability when those things happen, and that is what we have seen from the Premier: a willingness to front up and be held accountable and, indeed, to admit when he has made a mistake. That is something that the Premier has done which has been sadly lacking from those opposite.

Instead, what do we see from the opposition? We see a pattern of behaviour that I think reflects an opposition that has resigned itself to never having to deal with the challenges of government, or certainly never having to deal with the challenges of government any time soon. What instead do we see from the opposition? We see an opposition that is happy to leap on any human tragedy for base political purposes, an opposition lacking in any moral compass whatsoever that will simply leap on any human tragedy for cheap political points.

Let me give an example that is close to my heart because it does say a lot about the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition came into this chamber making allegations that an elderly lady had died in the Noarlunga Hospital emergency department waiting for a transfer.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I know they don't like to hear it because the truth hurts. What happened in that particular case? The Coroner intervened and rang the family of that lady to say that they had to put their funeral arrangements on hold because the Leader of the Opposition, without bothering to check his facts, had raised this issue. It had now entered the political arena and the Coroner had to intervene. When the family rang up the Hon. Stephen Wade to remonstrate with him for raising this issue, what happened? He called the cops. Stephen Wade called the police on a grieving family who only wanted to remonstrate with him for not checking their facts.

I raise this issue not so much because of what it says about the Hon. Stephen Wade but because of what it says about the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition blundered into the chamber, having made such a grievous error, having made such a terrible mistake and brought further grief to an already grieving family. How long did it take the Leader of the Opposition to be held accountable for that mistake? It took about three days before he could be dragged kicking and screaming before the TV cameras and, to the best of my recollection, I do not even recall him bothering to say sorry to that grieving family for his error.

Certainly, he has not done anything to explain how he was provided with that false information so that appropriate action could be taken against the individual who had intruded on that family's privacy. The Leader of the Opposition was quite happy to let the Hon. Stephen Wade take all the flack for his error. It took days and days before he had the courage to front the television cameras and be held accountable for his decisions. What do we see with regard to child protection in terms of offering any sort of policy alternative or in terms of saying to the people of South Australia, 'We have an alternative vision. We have something different to offer'? Very, very little. Very little, indeed.

What do we see in their wonderful '2036' document, when they expect perhaps they might have some chance of going into government? Very, very little, indeed. There is a list of statements which no-one is going to disagree with. There is no actual policy alternative, no vision for the people of South Australia, none of the answers on how we deal with this incredibly difficult and vexed issue of child protection and nothing positive or constructive to add to the debate.

It is purely a willingness to jump on human tragedy for base political gain. As I said, there is a pattern of behaviour here, this jumping onto human tragedy without any interest in the welfare of those people who have been the victims of this tragedy. It is purely base political gain on human tragedy. It is some of the worst behaviour I have seen from an opposition in the 20 years I have been in this place. The house can draw its own conclusions about the morality or character of a man who delights in other people's misfortune and who exploits it with scant regard for the welfare of those people.

But it also has something telling to say about the opposition, an opposition who have been out of power for so long that they have not only forgotten what it is like actually to make the tough decisions you need to make when you are in government, but in fact they have lost all interest in what it is like to make the difficult decisions you need to make when you are in government. I implore the house to reject this ridiculous motion and the feigned and ridiculous anger of the Leader of the Opposition.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:55): There were two things premier Rann did in his first year as Premier of South Australia; one was to prepare, call for and convene a drug summit in 2002, and the second was to prepare, call for and allocate the funding to progress with the appointment of Robyn Layton QC to fully investigate and review child protection in South Australia, both of which I personally applauded and which I think many in the government, and particularly those of us who were new in the parliament, recognised needed to be done, and they were taken up by the new government.

Regrettably, the drug summit took place and we have not seen a lot since from it. However, I at least commend the premier for starting that process. When it came to child protection, I do not think South Australia could have been better served in having the appointment of Robyn Layton QC to undertake that investigation. In nine months, she comprehensively read, reviewed and identified the deficiencies of the child protection system in South Australia. She produced a massive report in March 2003 to help us as legislators, and the government in particular, to develop policies that were going to improve a very fractured system.

I think that is to her credit, and I think it was to South Australia's advantage that we had someone of such significance, academic competence and intellectual capacity to guide us. What she set out in those recommendations was visionary and much of it was confronting. Personally, I had spent about 20 years in the child protection system inadvertently, through legal work, so I had a bit of a colour of how ugly this situation was in the real world. But, to her credit, she laid it out for us in unemotive but very clear substantiated and supported recommendations how we might go about reform, as a parliament and as a government, in policy reform and allocation of funding. Good on her for doing that, and I again commend the premier for taking up that challenge.

The Hon. Steph Key, the member for Ashford, was the first minister I worked with in this parliament as the new government, and good on her. She, of course, progressed this investigation and this thorough, honest, free, bones clear, everything out there uncovering of what was the problem. Good on her, and frankly I wish for South Australia that she was still the minister taking responsibility for this. Anyway, that did not happen.

In 2004, when the government had considered the recommendations of the Layton report, they commenced to implement under a new minister, minister Weatherill, who was the then minister appointed, the restructure of the child protection systems in South Australia, to reconvene the governance of how we operate and, of course, to particularly change the culture, which had been repeatedly criticised. Reports before I got here, and perhaps, Mr Speaker, when you were here—select committee inquiries and so on—had undertaken these. I remember not long after coming here that the Hon. Caroline Schaefer in another place undertook a comprehensive review of Families SA and its particular functioning. It was found to be dysfunctional then. We are talking again back in the era when Mr Weatherill was minister.

I make the point that what was very clear at that time was that we already had children dying in South Australia. One of the most acute cases, and one which I will always remember, was what was colloquially known as the 'Victor Harbor baby case'. The member for Heysen will remember this case of a tiny child who was left in the care of his mother living in Victor Harbor. There had been multiple visits from the then department of families and communities and, sadly, some months later the baby was found dead.

Obviously, a number of questions had to be asked. Why was this little baby boy, totally vulnerable, totally at the behest of any kind of control or supervision by his mother, who clearly was unable to care for this child? The minister of the day consistently declined to provide any detail to this house about that case. He kept telling us, 'I'm going to restructure the system. I'm going to establish a number of bodies.'

The first one the minister identified in response to dealing with the Victor Harbor baby case was the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee. Later, it had funding and was established. Sadly, after three or four years, let me tell you that it still did not have money to deal with serious injury. It only had time and money resources to deal with the 100-odd deaths a year of children who die in the state. Some die of natural causes shortly after childbirth, in car accidents or as a result of suicide. Sadly, too many die as a result of the neglect or abuse of others, with many of those being a parent or guardian.

We know all that, and let me say that the response of the minister at the time was, 'We need to be able to have a proper independent assessment of what has happened in this case and make sure that this doesn't happen again.' Well, guess what? Here we are in 2016 and the assessment of why that little boy died has never been the subject of an inquiry in this state by the Child Death and Serious lnjury Review Committee. Why? Because they said, 'He died before our jurisdiction started.' Has there been a coronial inquiry? No. That little boy died, and to this day nobody understands what went wrong in the systematic failure for that little boy.

Secondly, the minister said, 'In my restructure, I can't trust independent residential facilities to have responsibility for the care of our children'. These are the children under the guardianship of the minister. 'I cannot trust them, and our government won't trust them, and we're going to bring it all back in-house.' One was operating in the southern region, and again the member for Heysen will remember this because she had particular responsibility to look at it at the time. We had presented to us a completely restructured, centrally controlled 'bring it all into the department' approach by this Premier, the then minister, in charge of the responsibility of care for children.

Today, we still have Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee annual reports, and they still tell us that 100-odd children a year die, and they still tell us that 30 or so of those—it varies from year to year—are known to the department. They are either under the guardianship of the minister, or they are the subject of notifications and/or assessments that have been found. We still have the Guardian for Children, and that is another restructured responsibility.

When they reviewed that, it is important to remember that Mr Mullighan recommended (and it was ultimately incorporated in the statutes) that her report was not allowed to be touched by a minister before it got into parliament. Can you believe that? It is the first time I have ever seen that—a minister prohibited, under statute, from interfering with the provision of a report to parliament. That tells you about what was going wrong in this situation. I urge members to read those reports each year that they come in here because they tell the same chilling, cold, unacceptable story about the protection of our children in South Australia.

Finally, there was the Council for the Care of Children. That was the third structure introduced by the then premier. He said that was going to be the replacement of Ms Layton's recommendation that we actually have a child protection board. She recommended that, and he said, 'I'm going to incorporate that into this Council for the Care of Children.' Members should have a look at that. Every year, that report comes into the parliament and every year it tells us of a scandalous, incompetent provision of protection and service to children in our state, particularly those who are the most vulnerable.

Even today, we have the Premier telling us on radio that 20,000 notifications just last year were made in respect of alleged abuse against children. He went on to tell listeners this morning not just that, which is a staggering statistic in itself, but he went on to say, 'With 20,000 child protection notifications, we can't take 20,000 kids off parents in South Australia.' Remember that this is in the context of, 'Well, what are you doing about it?'

I suggest that that was a complete cop-out. He knew full well that fewer than 2,000 finalised, confirmed notifications actually occur in this state. Sure, if it's even fewer than 2,000, 1,900 is a lot of people, a lot of children who need care. I do not in any way walk away from the fact that the government has that difficult task to undertake, as a leader has said, but it is not so massive that it cannot be dealt with. Sure, he oversaw the expansion of the definition of child neglect and child protection and what was abuse and what was to be captured. It is unsurprising to me, with just about everyone in South Australia on a mandatory notification list obligation, that of course we have tens of thousands of notifications a year.

But at the pointy end of the pencil, at the end where children are left in a situation of care with a parent or guardian who clearly is not capable of protecting them and the department knows about it, sadly every year we continue to receive that problem. Let me just highlight my concern that there has been no change made by this Premier. I do not know whether he has read the Department for Education and Child Development's 2015 annual report that was tabled a week or so ago in this parliament. On page 46, there was a reference to child protection and, in particular, drug testing.

We have spent months dealing with Coroner Mark Johns' recommendations to the parliament to try to tidy up objects, visions, provisions, enforcement of applications made for assessment under sections 21 and 22 of the Children's Protection Act and how there had been a scandalous failure on the part of the government under this Premier's watch not to provide reporting in its annual report of the occasions when applications have been made, when drug testing had followed it, when there had been an assurance that we sought in the parliament and the Premier gave an undertaking on 1 December 2005 in this house.

The member for Heysen again remembers that we had negotiated to ensure that all this information had to be put in an annual report. When he was challenged about it some years later and asked, 'Why hasn't this happened?' he said, 'There were officers in the department sitting here in the parliament. They should have known what to do.' That is the level of lack of responsibility of actually dealing with this. What did we do? Last year and early this year, we debated the Coroner's recommendations, and we finalised it by putting in a new section 8E.

I hope the minister is listening to this because in this annual report under statute a number of things have to be listed. Let me tell you that I have read that report and, when she reads page 46, they are not in there. In my view, that is a blatant breach of the statutory provision. It is totally inconsistent with this Premier's promise to this parliament as an undertaking about what would be detailed. She should read that because she repeated some of the ineffective and inconsistent statistics in question time today in an attempt to say, 'My department's doing what it's supposed to be doing.' It is not doing what it is supposed to be doing; we all know that.

In just this small thing to help people understand, to help restore confidence to South Australians that these children in these circumstances are now under the protection of this government and they can have some confidence in it, they fail again. It is a simple task. You have to ask yourself why this information is being concealed. Why did the minister or the Premier not stand up today and say, 'I will say to the people of South Australia that every child who is living in a household in which there is a drug-affected parent or guardian—they will have a drug test'? It is a very simple law, but they did not say that today.

We read some weeks ago of the shocking murder of Adeline Yvette Rigney-Wilson and her two little children. I am not here to defend whoever might have been responsible for that. There are other matters that will be dealt with and in other forums that will be dealt with, but three people are dead. Two little children are dead. These are the ones that this government is supposed to be responsible for under this Premier's watch.

Has the Premier, the child reform minister or the minister for child protection—any one of them—come into this house and said, 'Look, we have looked at this matter and we want to reassure the house that a drug assessment had been undertaken of the parents or parties who were in that household. We knew about it and we were dealing with it and this is how we managed it'? No, they said, 'Margaret Nyland is going to deal with this. We are sending it off for her to have a look at.' She said, of course, 'Well, actually, I have finished my report and I am going to be giving my report to the parliament.'

What is their response? Still nothing, still absolute silence. The people of South Australia want to know why those two little children died in a situation where they were not going to school, where their mother clearly had a problem and maybe others in the household did. They were living in public housing. We had a litany of opportunities for all these ministers to have taken responsibility for those children and none of them will. Now we have two little children cold in those caskets because you have not done your job. You have not done your job.

I have said to repeated ministers, and there have been plenty along here, not just the present one, 'You are not responsible for the disgusting things that people do to their children,' and I have always said that, 'but you are responsible if any one of you knows that there is a problem and you have got statutory obligations to fulfil and you don't do either and those children end up dead'. That is totally unacceptable. I will not tolerate it and none of the people sitting behind you should tolerate it

These are children who die in their electorates, not just mine or ours on this side of the house. These are children who have no-one else to protect them and you have an obligation to fix it up. I say to the parliament that this Premier has been absolutely inadequate in his protection of children and I want him to go. This government has another 20 months or so. They could pick someone out of what is left there who can do the job because he has failed these children.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader was heard in silence. I expect the same for the Minister for Education and children's services.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (16:12): I have been in this role since about February last year and I have had the opportunity to understand the full scope and difficulty of the child protection portfolio. This child protection matter, this portfolio in South Australia, is under severe pressure. It is easy to say that and it is easy to point fingers, but let's just get the dimensions of what is happening for the people who are working in that portfolio and for the families who they are trying to deal with.

We have had a massive increase in the number of notifications that we are receiving. We have gone from 2013-14, 39,000, up to, in the first three-quarters of 2015-16, 36,000. So, if we are on track, 48,000 people coming to the CARL line saying that there is a problem. We know that—

An honourable member: Because you changed the criteria.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: So you do not want to hear it? That is the thing, just change the criteria. Do not hear it. Do not understand what is going on out there. We know from Adelaide University that 19 per cent—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: If the leader makes another utterance outside standing orders, I will not remove him under the sessional order, I will name him. The minister.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: We know from Adelaide University research that 19 per cent of children from nought to 10 in South Australia will have at least one notification that is screened in. That is not just someone ringing up and saying there might be something that turns out to be nothing. That is 19 per cent screened in in South Australia, but only 1.8 per cent of those children come into out-of-home care.

What we have is a system that is geared to deal with the 1.8 per cent that is trying to deal with 19 per cent. Removals are escalating. Removals of children from their biological families are escalating. In March 2015, 2,838 children were under my guardianship. In March 2016, it is just over 3,100 under my guardianship and not able to be with their families. We have seen increases in foster care and kinship care in that time. We have seen a dramatic increase in the proportion of kinship carers since 2002, something like a 700 per cent increase. That is families stepping up and helping out, but neither have increased sufficiently.

So, what we have now are children in residential facilities and in emergency care. This is the kind of care I do not want to see any child living in, but they cannot be with their families, and there are no other families who are currently taking them. We have problems with our staffing levels. We have vacancies in our department that we are struggling to fill, and part of that is because we have an attrition rate of something like 8 per cent. So, as much as we bring people on, we lose people. We need not only good workers, we need experienced child protection workers, and we are struggling to keep them. This system is under pressure. I will never deny that to anybody, and I will never try to be defensive about it. This is not how I want to see children in South Australia being taken care of, but it is not going to be solved by blaming the social workers or blaming the structures.

I utterly support Margaret Nyland's move to recommend that we take child protection out of DECD. I am grateful for her consideration of the situation we are in now and what mechanisms might be used to change the dynamic, but I can tell you one element that does not assist this dynamic is the politicisation of this issue. It is hard to draw a line—I appreciate that. People want to ask questions, and they want accountability—I understand that—but when stories are told that are misleading about what is happening in order to gain political advantage, then we are going to be worse off in how we are able to respond to this problem.

The one that is really annoying me is the commissioner for children because, when I came in here in February of last year as the new minister, I said, 'Okay, it is stuck in the upper house. We have a version that is entirely consistent with what Robyn Layton had recommended. The opposition and some crossbenchers are interested in something slightly different. Let's see what we can work out.' I had a meeting with the Hon. Stephen Wade, and I had a meeting with several crossbenchers. I said to the Hon. Stephen Wade, 'Do you think, now that we have a royal commission on the entire structure, we should perhaps ask the commissioner what her view is on this?' 'Good idea.'

So, I went off and asked the commissioner. What did she do? She wrote back to me, and she said, 'The matters of the structure of the child protection system, including the council, including the guardian, including the Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee, are matters that I am looking at, and I am looking at a structure that will inevitably have an impact on the rules, the powers and the position of a commissioner for children. I am concerned that you will need to change what you are proposing, once I have had an opportunity to describe the shape of child protection.'

So, I spoke to the Hon. Stephen Wade, and I said, 'I am going to do a press release to explain that I think we should put this on hold, to wait for Margaret Nyland to create the structure so that we are not messing people around, and so that we are not going off in this direction while Margaret Nyland thinks we should go in that direction, while the role of the guardian, the council and CDSIRC are able to be taken into account.'

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I showed the Hon. Stephen Wade my press release, in draft form, and he made a suggestion for one part of the change, so I am so disappointed that this matter, which I have answered for in this parliament, and answered for in estimates, is being used to again try to find blame somewhere. This is not about trying to find blame: this is about doing better for the children. I say to you that I have every faith that this Premier is the person with the moral courage not only to do things but to ask the difficult questions—Is this what we should be doing? Have we gone in the right direction?—

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel is very close to being named.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: —similar to my preparedness to ask Margaret Nyland not to back in the version that we had come to, not to even endorse what Robyn Layton had done, but to say, 'Do you want to have a view on this?' This Premier has shown that kind of courage, from implementing the Layton report, through Justice Mullighan's reports, and now by initiating Nyland. I think that the children of South Australia would be better served if we all showed some respect for those institutions and did not try to play games with them.

In the very brief time I have left, I would like to touch on the importance of universal services. With 19 per cent of kids getting at least one screened in notification and less than 2 per cent being taken away, what do we do with that gap? While I am absolutely happy to support Margaret Nyland's recommendation on removing what is currently called Families SA and forming a child protection agency, my education department will not be taking a step backwards in supporting these children. These children need every bit of help they can get from every service in government, and that includes education, from the universal home visits initiated by this government to identifying what supports parents might need through to preschool, which we offer from the age of three for children of Aboriginal background and children under my guardianship, through to funding schools for disadvantage because this is about children who start off behind and finished behind and never get to catch up.

The education department is utterly dedicated to putting its resources to levelling that playing field, to remediating those disadvantages, so that they can become productive members of society. The 60 wellbeing practitioners that Margaret Nyland encouraged us to put into our budget that we are going to be putting in schools, that is still going to happen irrespective of the move of Families SA out of the department. There is a universal response role here, and that is what the Premier identified, and I thank him for it.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (16:20): This government continues to hide behind endless inquiries, reports and royal commissions that cost millions of dollars that could have been spent employing the staff required to make changes to the system. This government is not only lacking in ideas, it is failing to use the legislation available to it to protect children and it is failing to implement its own policies.

How many children have died under this Labor government due to legislation and policies not being implemented such as section 20(2) relating to drug testing, which was brought in many years ago when Nick Xenophon was a member of this parliament, and what are the consequences? I have asked in parliament with no answer. Yes, you might now be testing people for drugs but what are you doing? Are they being rehabilitated? Do you have drug facilities for them to go to? Are you giving help to the children? What are the consequences?

The cumulative harm that came in after the Chloe Valentine case, why was that not used in the Rigney-Wilson case? What about the background checks of adults living with children at risk like in baby Ebony's case who died from multiple fractures to that small body? What about income management that was brought in over a year ago? Why is that not being used by drug users to make sure that children are being fed, that they are given their formula, that they do have nappies? What about the family conferencing that should be used at the beginning to keep families together that is being used only as a last resort right before they are taken to the Youth Court to have their children removed?

What about the truancy laws that your own deputy says are there and are strong enough and are not being used? Jarrad Delroy Roberts died, and truancy was one of the major factors. As your deputy mentioned on the radio today, the one common factor that all the children who have died had in common was that they failed to go to school for long periods of time. We are missing the opportunity to pick up the children who are at risk. We are not even implementing your own truancy laws that Jane Lomax-Smith announced for tougher penalties in 2009 after Jarrad Delroy Roberts died, a local in my area, and they are not even being implemented.

Why were the Rigney-Wilson children home on a school day? Why was that not followed up? Why were they there? If a CEO was the architect of such a failed restructure that led to mass exodus of staff, the lowest morale of all time, ministers leaving, Portolesi being fired, Rankine resigning, Waterford resigning, Tony Harrison getting moved, they would be fired. They would not be there. The Premier must resign to bring back the dignity to this position. You cannot remain the Premier with this massive failure to protect our children hanging over your head. The so-called Independent members for Frome and Waite have the opportunity to prove they are truly independent when we vote on this motion.

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (16:24): The member for Adelaide will not have to wait for long. In urging members to reject this motion, I commend the comments and contributions of my honourable friends the Minister for Health and the Minister for Education, and I hope that the house has listened carefully to their remarks. I also commend Commissioner Margaret Nyland for her interim report and say that I am looking forward to seeing the detail of her full report.

These moments, this issue and these conversations are most difficult to bear. In the 18 years I have been here, this subject has been the one that has troubled me the most. All of us who are parents have had our hearts broken by these events. My family had a very long history of involvement in child care. I can tell you firsthand what it is like to deal with hundreds of families going through these turmoils. I can tell you what it is like to deal with the childcare workers who have to deal with the parents and who have to help to repair the children—and those are the children who are within the reach of the childcare system and the education system, not the ones who are beyond it.

To pretend in this motion that any one minister, any one premier or any one government has all the answers to solve this problem, to wave a magic wand and make all these problems go away, is fanciful and irresponsible. The problems of family breakdown in our community—and every lower house member knows it as they doorknock—the problems of drugs and alcohol, from Ceduna to the South-East, from the north of Adelaide to the west and to the south, right across our community, are extraordinary. The problems of abuse and family violence are wreaking havoc in every single electorate we represent, and the victims of this damage are the little children.

This motion pretends that this house should hold one person or one minister or a series of ministers responsible for what is a far broader problem involving us all—every family, every corner, every township. It is easy to say there is a problem, and this is true for the media as much as for members of parliament. It is very easy to become a commentator. It is very easy after a disaster to beat it up, to talk about it. It is the easiest thing in the world to be a commentator, but of course there are some very serious problems here that need answers and the problem for politicians is that you have to try to find them.

What is the role of government and what is the role of family in protecting the children? To what extent does the long arm of government reach into the family home and start to tell parents what to do? When do you raise the flag and say, 'That parent is no good.'? When do you make these decisions? What is the role of non-government organisations? To what extent should churches and other NGOs be involved? Would they do a better job than government officials or government offices? How do you find childcare workers? How do you find people to work in this area? How do you vet them? How do you make sure that no-one slips through the net? When do you choose to intervene and when do you choose not to intervene?

No-one in this house and no-one listening to this debate has the answers to those questions. They are difficult issues of public policy. It is fine for those opposite to commentate and criticise after the event when something has gone wrong and to say what should have been done. I have seen plenty of that in my respective careers. I have seen people die and afterwards someone comes along with a court of inquiry, goes over all the details and tries to hang people out to dry over it. Yet, the near mistake that occurred on a hundred previous occasions went unreported.

Politicians have to find the answers. Politicians have to lead. Politicians have to talk about solutions. This government, like every government before it, like every other state government, like every federal government, has done its best. We have proposed solutions. Some of them have worked and some of them have not, and the Premier was the first to get up and say, 'We tried this. It didn't work. We need to listen to Commissioner Nyland. We need to change what we're doing.' I think that is honourable—very honourable indeed.

Let's take the party politics out of it. I simply say to every politician in this house: what is your solution? If you were the minister for child protection, what would you do? If you have a view on that, I would like to have heard it during this debate. I want to make a simple point. I know the members on the other side of the chamber very well.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH: Yes, I do—every single one of you. I know members on this side of the chamber equally well, warts and all. I certainly know the Leader of the Opposition very well and I know the Premier very well. I think the people of South Australia are presently very well served indeed because I recall the Leader of the Opposition getting up at the last election saying he did not come into politics for the social issues. I cannot think of any more important social issue than the one we are dealing with.

I at least commend him for having discovered it because in my dealings with the Premier when I was Leader of the Opposition, a shadow minister and now a minister in his government, I have found a man with nothing but compassion for the most vulnerable in our community. I know there are many opposite who share that view. I also know, because there are some extremely decent people opposite, that a lot of you would have concerns about the way this has been managed today, but the senior group within the opposition have brought this to us.

I want to remind the house of what I think were stronger days for the opposition. I refer to the debate in this house in June 2008 when we, in a bipartisan way, apologised for the damage done to children in state care. I was the opposition leader at the time sitting right there and I remember it very well. I know the position which was recommended in the party room and which was agreed to by the honourable members opposite, and that was that, rather than to wreak havoc, rather than to criticise and rather than to seize a political advantage, we would, in a bipartisan way, agree with the premier of the day and jointly share an apology because we understood that these problems of abuse of children, whether in care or not, go back decades. No government is innocent. No government is perfect.

The honourable members opposite on that day agreed with that position. I refer members to the Hansard because at one point in the Hansard I made the point, on behalf of those opposite, that what Ted Mullighan had endured during his inquiry was frightening. Mullighan said:

Nothing prepared me for the foul undercurrent of society revealed in evidence to the inquiry. Not my life in the community or my work in the law, as a practitioner and a judge.

I want to remind members of what I said on their behalf about that remark.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH: These are important issues, deputy leader, just listen. This is what I said:

The challenge before us is to put in place the protective mechanisms to reduce the possibility that there will be hurting victims.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: It was heard in silence.

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH: I continue:

We need to do more than prosecute offenders. We need to provide a society where fewer parents face the family stress that causes them to lose their children. We need to provide a society where parents can send their children to state-run programs confident in the knowledge that they are safe. We need to be alert to those who would prey on children they see as vulnerable. This is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society responsibility. It includes policing and prosecution. It includes emergency social intervention and care. It includes the encouragement of stronger and happy families. This will take time.

We must work together and we can do better. If you are looking for a reason why people are disenchanted with partisan politics, today has provided an example. I just say to the house: how things have changed. Honourable friends, we can do better. This motion should be rejected by the house.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 19

Noes 23

Majority 4

AYES
Bell, T.S. Chapman, V.A. Duluk, S.
Gardner, J.A.W. Goldsworthy, R.M. Griffiths, S.P.
Knoll, S.K. Marshall, S.S. Pederick, A.S.
Pengilly, M.R. Pisoni, D.G. Redmond, I.M.
Sanderson, R. Speirs, D. Tarzia, V.A.
Treloar, P.A. (teller) van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Whetstone, T.J.
Wingard, C.
NOES
Bedford, F.E. Bettison, Z.L. Bignell, L.W.K.
Brock, G.G. Caica, P. Close, S.E.
Cook, N.F. Digance, A.F.C. Gee, J.P.
Hamilton-Smith, M.L.J. Hildyard, K. Hughes, E.J.
Kenyon, T.R. (teller) Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A.
Mullighan, S.C. Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A.
Picton, C.J. Rau, J.R. Snelling, J.J.
Vlahos, L.A. Weatherill, J.W.
PAIRS
McFetridge, D. Rankine, J.M. Williams, M.R.
Wortley, D.

Motion thus negatived.

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