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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-16 Daily Xml
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Child Protection, Rice Inquiry

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. When will your department be capable of running the significant incident reporting unit?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (14:36): I did make a ministerial statement this morning, but I will just repeat for the benefit of the member. The process to be undertaken to support recommendations 1 and 2—that is, the chief executive's role in redelivering a new, concise, clear and unambiguous set of guidelines and protocols—is to be assisted by the establishment of a significant incident unit to be headed by a nominee of the Crown Solicitor's Office.

In short, that enables someone of senior legal capacity to assist in the drafting and development of such guidelines. As the minister has pointed out in other forums today, it quite clearly was a circumstance where, post the Debelle inquiry, the review of the operational protocols was such that it provided, from Mr Rice's perspective in reviewing all of these, a complex and ambiguous set of protocols, which was a key element in the lack of application and understanding of those personnel who are expected to employ those and comply with them.

Whilst Mr Rice doesn't reflect on any individual member of the department, he makes it clear that they don't work and they can't work and they need to be remedied. To support that, the government have endorsed the establishment of the unit on a permanent basis—not on an ad hoc basis but on a permanent basis—and, further, that there be two aspects of that: the redrafting exercise, with the support and assistance of the headed nominee from the Crown Solicitor's Office, and the compliance of the data to review when significant incidents are received and analysed by the unit.

All the compliance aspects of that are to be supported by that purpose. That role is to include the provision of reporting up to the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, the head of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. As I remind the members, all the chief executives of the departments in the government are employed by the Premier. That has been the case, I think, for some 15 or 20 years or so. From memory, I think it went back to Premier Olsen, as that regime of employment.

Whilst the Rice review doesn't refer to that actual legal relationship, that is something that we have employed as a government to ensure that not only the department is operational in this regard but that every department that is involved in incident reviews has that relationship at the department head with the Premier of that employment so that there is oversight in itself of all of the departments.

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