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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-09 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Child Protection

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (15:10): I rise today to talk about the failed experiment between Families SA, child protection and the education department, and it is a failed experiment and it is an absolute disgrace. I call on the leaders within the Labor Party to stand up to the Premier and separate these two departments.

Back in 2011, when Jay Weatherill became Premier, he amalgamated these two departments and put out a press release after one of the inquiries, and I want to go through some of those inquiries. First, we had the Layton inquiry, which was about children: 'Our best investment'. I do not know whether or not people have actually read that, but the key points in that were that 50 per cent of social workers were in their first two years and 50 per cent of those were in their first year. So you had this situation in Families SA where you had a very young, inexperienced cohort, coupled with an extremely old cohort, and the report talks about 'policy paralysis'. It is quite interesting that David Waterford, head of Families SA, now talks about a siege mentality and policy paralysis. They have known about this for a very long time.

After that, of course, we had the Hon. Ted Mullighan inquiry in about 2004, then we had the Debelle royal commission, now we have the Nyland royal commission and, of course, Coroner's reports. To sit here today and hear the Labor government say that they cannot do anything because they do not know what the latest recommendation from the royal commission is going to be is quite unbelievable and flabbergasting. How many reports and recommendations do you need before you act on this very serious point? Back in 2013, Premier Jay Weatherill put out a press release titled 'State Government's Response to Independent Education Inquiry'. Quite interestingly, one of the points is:

Since January the Government has undertaken a range of measures to improve child protection including:

Appointing the Executive Director of Families SA, David Waterford, to Deputy Chief Executive Child Safety—to oversee the implementation of Mr Debelle's findings.

So here we have a press release saying that this will be the answer to this. From that, you have Mr Waterford implementing the Debelle findings, and what he has now shed a light on is how dysfunctional this department has become. And I know firsthand, because I have been in the education department when all of this has been going on and can I say to this house that it is extremely serious. There is a siege mentality.

David Waterford also talks about the department being more focused on protecting its reputation rather than keeping children safe. What a disgrace! I have been in meetings where education is actually the last thing that we get to talk about—in fact, we do not talk about it—because it is all about reputation and making sure that the department is kept off the front page of the paper.

He also says that the department has become meeting-focused. That is so true. In fact, I have been prompted to stand and talk today because, when I was watching the report last night on the Channel 9 News, everything he was saying is deeply concerning but even more so because it is true. No-one would make a decision. You have a department in total paralysis. It will not take a risk, it will not do anything, and the people who are suffering the most are actually children, and not only child protection but also the education standards of children, and that is what I want to talk about.

We have now sunk to pretty much the bottom of all NAPLAN testing, and it is an absolute disgrace. So, what is the answer to it? This is what really annoys me. Now we are starting to talk about the validity of that test and in fact not even needing that test. That is a disgrace. We need to make sure that these departments are separated and that we have a focus on education and a focus on child protection.

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