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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-07-05 Daily Xml
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Families SA

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection Reform. Now that Commissioner Nyland has ruled out investigating Families SA's role in the Hillier case, will the minister appoint an independent investigator to assess the performance of Families SA in the tragedy? By the minister confirming in this house that he had referred the tragedy to Commissioner Nyland, the minister has implicitly acknowledged that the role of Families SA needs to be assessed sooner rather than later.

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide should know by now, having been in the house six years, that the explanation of a question may not contain argumentation. Minister.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (15:03): This is a question which the member for Adelaide has been floating around the place quite a lot for the last few weeks. I would just like to again respond to her and to the house and to the public, to the extent that anybody who is thinking about this thinks the independent inquiry line she is pushing has any value.

We presently have a police investigation into a triple murder. I have no doubt—and I have said this before as well—that when we have one of these incidents there are internal inquiries that occur within Families and Communities just to ascertain what has happened, who has been involved and so forth. We also have a royal commission that has been going for 12 or 15 months, or however long it has been.

Ms Sanderson: It's rejected this.

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is warned.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: When I first became aware of this matter and the potential for it to have something to do with Families and Communities, there was an immediate decision made to actually take the raw material that was available to the minister. I remember asking the minister if we could organise this and we did. That raw material was made available to the royal commissioner. It was entirely a matter for the royal commissioner. Incidentally, I think everyone needs to understand, if they don't already, that the royal commission is the highest possible level of independent inquiry a state can have. This is a completely independent person operating under their own act of parliament.

This person was given all of this material. If she determined that there was something in that material that was sufficiently different from other material she had seen or that was alerting her to new matters, it is my expectation that she would have contacted me and said, 'Look, this raises significant issues which I have not already seen, to which I have not already turned my mind, and I think it's important we have an opportunity to spend some time and look at this and I want the opportunity to do that, and I don't think I can make the August deadline.' But that is not what she did.

I ask this rhetorical question: given that there is an internal inquiry or internal review within Families and Communities, and given that the police are looking at this from the perspective of criminal conduct, and given the fact that we have a royal commissioner who has spent the last 15 or 18 months, or however long it is, looking into every aspect of Families and Communities and who is about to announce, I expect, a pretty fundamental change in the whole thing, what is the point of appointing another person to inquire into a single event which, at best—and I emphasise 'at best'—would go to prove that there are inadequacies in the existing way in which that agency is operating which require attention?

I am reasonably confident that we will get that message pretty loud and clear on or about 5 August. I cannot see how having another inquiry going off on this particular matter in circumstances where the police are already looking at it, where it is my expectation, as I said, that there would be an internal incident assessment, or whatever it is called, within the department, and—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —it has been referred to the royal commissioner and we are about to receive a royal commission report and, if the Coroner chooses, in due course, to have a look at the thing, he is perfectly entitled to do so.

Ms SANDERSON: Supplementary?

The SPEAKER: The member for Ashford.

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