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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-23 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Ministerial Accountability

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:05): I am going to make what is probably for me a rare statement, which is one agreeing with the Premier. When he gave the quote that was referenced earlier—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will resume his seat for a moment.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members leaving the chamber will do so quietly. A moment ago, I clearly heard—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I clearly heard the Minister for Innovation and Skills utter the word 'disgrace' as he left the chamber—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I have not observed to whom he uttered that statement. I ask the Minister for Innovation and Skills to withdraw and apologise.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: I withdraw and apologise, sir.

Ms HILDYARD: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: The member for Reynell on a point of order.

Ms HILDYARD: Yes, 124: I take great offence to the member for Unley, when he was still in his seat and when he was leaving the chamber, saying to me, 'You will make them wear a star soon.'

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! On the point of order—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I have indicated in the course of question time that members will depart if disorder continues. The member for Reynell raises a—

Mr Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I am in the process of ruling on the point of order, member for Wright. The member for Reynell raises a point of order pursuant to standing order 124. I remind the member for Reynell and all members that it is important to raise any point of order in relation to words that have been used by any member immediately. It's a topic that has been the subject of—

Ms Hildyard: I stood straight up.

The SPEAKER: Order! It has been the topic of consideration recently, having been raised by the member for Florey. I accept, in the circumstances, the member for Reynell has raised the matter as soon as practicable. I ask the Minister for Innovation and Skills to withdraw and apologise to the member for Reynell for those remarks.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: It's not exactly what I said, but I withdraw and apologise, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The deputy leader has the call.

Dr CLOSE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. My dear friend—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Badcoe! Order, member for Hurtle Vale!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Energy and Mining on a point of order.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: No, sir; I think you are about to take charge.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members leaving the chamber will leave in an orderly manner. The deputy leader has the call. The deputy leader is entitled to be heard in silence. Members on my right and on my left will maintain silence. The deputy leader has the call.

Dr CLOSE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. These are trying times. My good friend and the very honourable member for Reynell referred earlier to a quote from the Premier that was issued at a time just before the last election. He held a view that I agree with, and I will paraphrase because the full quote has been given, that 'ministers have to be inquisitive, inquiring and challenging' and 'Responsibility ends on the minister's desk, not at the departmental door.' These are fine words.

I will have to take a brief moment to clarify some of the assertions made by the Premier. Having written my grievance and wanting to say that I agree with him and praise him for those words, he then in answer to a question was quite misleading in the way he represented statistics that resulted from reform that he said he could lay at the door of his government and his minister.

The CARL wait time went from 42 minutes the year before to 15 minutes under my changes when I was still the minister in that financial year. Not long after the election, the number of children who were not only in care but, very tragically, then put into residential care and into commercial care escalated dramatically, so to try to claim all the reform for his government is simply inaccurate and I felt the need to clarify that.

But let us get back to the minister and her actions. Has she been inquisitive, inquiring and challenging? There are two issues that have been raised in the context of the matters that have been addressed in the last two days in question time and previously in the media. First of all, she claims to have inherited a policy that was not to tell her that a critical incident had occurred. Secondly, there is the question: if she was not being told about these, did she ask any questions? Let us deal with the first one. What is particularly concerning about that is that we cannot get clear whether she was on a notification list or not. It seems to be, 'Well, I wouldn't have been told about that under the policy that I inherited, but I was on the notification list, just a bit far down.'

Being far down the notification list is okay when there is a critical incident that needs to be dealt with by the worker, the worker's manager, the person in charge of that section and then up to the chief executive. It is important that they know that first, but then the minister gets to find out. We are not talking about a time between January and now; we should be talking about a matter of days. If she is on that list, she was informed, yet she claims that she was not informed.

Was this something that she inherited, whichever version that we may be being asked to believe existed? I know that I received critical incident reports when I was the minister, as did my staff. I know that I heard awful things that were happening to children, such that I feel for anyone who holds the portfolio of child protection. There is a great deal of vicarious trauma that goes with being that minister. It is nothing on being the child in that situation. It is nothing on being a frontline worker in that situation, but it is challenging to read those reports and some of them are seared in my memory.

I would go home feeling that I had acted in a professional and grown-up way all day and find myself crying while reading to my children because of what I had read that day in those reports about those critical incidents that I was being informed about. One of those reports that I remember was in fact that a 13-year-old child was in residential care and was in an inappropriate relationship with an older male. I remember being told that because that was the protocol that we had: that I needed to be informed about that so that I could do something.

If the minister did not get any reports like that, did she not notice that she did not have those reports? Where is the inquiring mind? Where is the, 'Gee, nothing bad seems to be happening to children in care. Why aren't I receiving these statements? Why aren't I being told about them?' Because if you do not know, you cannot act, and if you cannot act you are not being a minister.

Terrible things happen to children in care before they come into care and, tragically, sometimes afterwards. The minister's job is to make the system better and you cannot do that if you are not being told, and if you are not being told you should be asking why not. This minister—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Dr CLOSE: —has failed the Premier's test.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader's time has expired. Before I call the member for King, I note that, in respect of standing order 81A, the time allowed for grievances is no less than five minutes. It is my desire not to interrupt in the course of a member providing a grieve. I just ask that all members bear that in mind. I will exercise discretion so as to allow—

Ms Stinson: The member for Unley should keep that in mind.

The SPEAKER: Does the member for Badcoe have something that needs to be said in the course of my ruling on this standing order? I will exercise my discretion to permit a member to conclude their remarks so as not to be bound slavishly by that five-minute limit. I just make that observation for the benefit of all members.

Dr CLOSE: If I may, just as a point of clarification, I appreciate your latitude in allowing me to go slightly over. I had considered asking for additional time given the interrupted beginning, but I felt that, if it were not given to me, it would take still more time from me. I appreciate the latitude that was shown by the Chair.

The SPEAKER: No need, deputy leader. The discretion is there for that purpose.

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