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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-02 Daily Xml
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Safeguarding Taskforce

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:35): My question is to the Premier. Why won't the Premier commit to publicly releasing the terms of reference for the disability task force?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:35): I think we have spent the better part of 20 minutes here outlining our approach to this and that is that we immediately—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Why are you so angry? Who is making the move on this guy? He is looking more and more angry every single day. I know some of your own—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —members are putting in FOIs—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elizabeth!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —on correspondence between your office and mine. I don't know what that's all about. That seems very unusual. I'm glad Vickie's not putting in any FOIs on my correspondence with you. I am not sure why they are putting in FOIs, trying to find correspondence between your office and my office. I just think it would be great if he could calm down.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I am more than happy to answer this question because what we are wanting to do is get to the bottom of the problems which exist here in South Australia. We know that clients by and large have moved from the state system to the federal system. It would be very easy to say, 'Look, this is not our problem. This is somebody else's problem,' but we haven't done that; in fact, we have moved extraordinarily quickly to say, 'What can we do in South Australia?'

In fact, we have a police inquiry, a pending Coroner's inquiry and a task force of people from right across the spectrum to advise the government as quickly as possible. We are not waiting for an end point but saying, 'Can you give us an interim report, because we might be able to have further input, and then a final report to be received in a very short period of time?' So I don't know why those people opposite are so aggravated about this. To me, I think they—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Your secrecy.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —could quite rightly be aggravated if we said, 'This is a problem of another jurisdiction; we don't want to have anything to do with it.' We haven't said that—in fact, quite the opposite: 'What can we do?' The task force will look at issues and opportunities for us in South Australia as well as at the federal level. I think it's a great opportunity to get as many ideas and thoughts on the table as quickly as possible.

And, yes, the terms of reference are broad: look at the gaps in terms of oversight and safeguarding for those people who are living with a significant disability in South Australia and any other items that you want to bring to our attention. We are not going to limit it down. What sort of government would say, 'You can only look at these three things. We don't want to look at anything further'? Maybe a government that's trying to hide something. Well, that's not us.

We are saying, 'Put it on the table.' We actually want to get to the bottom of this. We want to solve this situation. We don't want it to ever, ever, ever happen again—never happen again. We are not out there muddying the waters. We are not out there frightening people in the community. Yes, we admit—

Mr Malinauskas: You set up a task force. They don't even know what the terms of reference are.

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that there is a very serious problem in South Australia, and we are determined to work every single day that we are in government to address these issues, not sweep the difficult issues under the table but to address them.

Members interjecting:

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

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: We will do that every day, whether it be with vulnerable children in the child protection system, within the corrections system, people who are living with a disability—they deserve our attention whether they be a state client, whether they be a federal client, whether they be in a government-run facility, whether they be working with an NGO. Whatever the case, bring your thoughts, bring your suggestions, bring the opportunities to our government. We are there to listen.

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