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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-16 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (15:23): I rise to respond to the report of Kate Alexander published by the government last week, entitled 'Trust in Culture'. It was sought by the government back in May or June this year in response to the findings of the Deputy Coroner in relation to the deaths of Amber Rose Rigney, Korey Lee Mitchell and their mother, Adeline Yvette Rigney.

In these remarks I mean no particular criticism of Kate Alexander; however, I do not share the view of the Premier given in response to my question yesterday that the document responds to its terms of reference or is otherwise in the least bit evidencing any aspect of having been a worthwhile exercise. Indeed, it ought more properly to have been entitled 'wilful blindness' or perhaps, alternatively, 'dereliction of duty'. Those were two of the observations—and damning they were—of the Deputy Coroner in the Deputy Coroner's findings in May in respect of a basic failure by the department to do what it was required to do in accordance with the act.

It was obliged, in the circumstances in which it found these poor children to be living, pursuant to the clear mandates of the then act, to have sought orders in the court to intervene, both in respect of the analysis of available drug treatment and in terms of taking those children to a safe place. The Deputy Coroner described the reluctance of the department to act in its usual course, compounded by the department's unwillingness to act in the face of requests from the court to do so, to amount to a combination of wilful blindness as to its obligations under the then applicable act—the Children's Protection Act 1993—and a dereliction of duty insofar as it purported to be unable to act.

The Deputy Coroner made recommendations in two clear areas. One was to go back and look over all the previous coronial findings going back to 2010. The other was to have a thoroughgoing review into departmental processes, with a view to the department complying with its statutory obligations, and not only the department but also the then minister, the now Deputy Premier. The Deputy Coroner found in clear terms that those statutory obligations were set out on the face of the act and ought to have been complied with. Not only that, but previous coronial inquests, particularly that following the death of poor Chloe Valentine, had found that those things had not occurred back then and that they were basic and straightforward.

The Deputy Coroner in May of this year, in describing those events, said, 'Well, this has happened before.' The chief executive, in response to a coronial finding—and this is at page 65 of the Deputy Coroner's report—in response to the Chloe Valentine coronial inquest, did something quite straightforward, posting a notice on the board for departmental staff to follow. The notice said, 'The Coroner has made a recommendation that Families SA should strictly comply with section 20(2) of the Children's Protection Act 1993 with immediate effect,' and then stated what section 20(2) says.

For the government to have gone ahead and ordered the production of the Alexander report in all the circumstances amounts to nothing more than whitewash. There will be more to say about this in due course. This was a shameful set of circumstances that deserved a practical and immediate response.

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