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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-20 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Child Protection

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:20): Members today would have been sitting in shock to hear the government's response to why they have failed to establish the new child protection department, which they promised on 21 June this year. Commissioner Nyland had announced, in an interim report, her recommendation that this be advanced. The Premier made a clear statement that day to say:

The creation of a new standalone Department with a clear blueprint for how it should operate will allow for a fresh start in child protection.

He went on to say:

Implementing this recommendation ahead of receiving the final report will allow us to have the agency better placed to deliver on the important reforms that will be required.

What did we hear today? 'We do not have the new head of the department in place yet. We needed to advertise. We needed to select somebody, but they are not starting until 31 October.' As it stands, they are not even going to have a desk to go and sit at. So, when Ms Cathy Taylor arrives here from Queensland to take up her job as the new head of the department for child protection, she is not even going to have this new office which the Premier had made quite clear, standing at a press conference next to the Minister for Education and Child Development, and next to the Minister for Child Protection Reform, was going to happen.

We have these pathetic excuses today about why they have not changed the sign above the door which is now acknowledged to remain in the same Department for Education and Child Development building, down in the State Administration Centre which, although being sold, is still going to have these tenants. We now know that, just like the SACAT proposal of the government, they are just going to change the sign on the top of the door and possibly put in a new desk or a new chair for this new head of the department.

They make promises to establish some argument to the public that they are acting. In this case, they wanted to present to the public that they were acting in advance of this avalanche that was to come, namely 260 recommendations to remedy the disgraceful ineptitude of this government. I just want to say that it is not as though this government have not been on notice. Other departments in other states have struggled with this ongoing, burgeoning expectation of children needing care.

Queensland was one of the most recent. Queensland, three years ago in June 2013, published their report, titled Taking Responsibility: a Roadmap for Queensland Child Protection. They made the very clear point, not that their department at that time was in the state of severe dysfunction that has clearly been identified in ours, that they had a burgeoning number of reports and children taken into state care, an overflow of residential care and, of course, the reluctance of the numbers of foster parents to step forward to take on this responsibility. Mr Carmody QC, who wrote that report, who I have a very high regard for, said:

Keeping Queensland children safe is a shared, but not equal, responsibility. The state is not a co-parent. In a democratic, non-Orwellian society, it can only step in when a family is unwilling or unable to care for its own. So, in most cases the best way for government to help children is to support their parents and communities. It does not (and cannot) intervene to remove all risk. Families, teachers, doctors, police and others have to carry acceptable risk when it is their turn, and not pass it on down the line.

They made it very clear what had to be done and they implemented some reforms in Queensland. Those reforms look remarkably like a number of those in the 260 that we have. This is not rocket science. This is not a new problem. In this case, we have a high level of dysfunction. The Premier went out on 21 June and said to the people of South Australia, 'We do have a serious situation and we are going to act on it. We do need new leadership. I am going to keep the same minister, who has been in charge of this mess for the last few years, but I am going to appoint a new CEO.'

I might have a lot more to say in due course about the appointment of Ms Taylor from Queensland and what has failed on her shift, but I make this point: the government and the Premier should not be out there pretending to care about reform in this area if they are not even prepared to have the office ready and the restructure in place for the new leadership to take on its role.

Time expired.

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