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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-13 Daily Xml
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Foster and Kinship Carer Week

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. How is the government promoting and supporting the role of foster and kinship carers?

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:56): I thank the member very much for this really important question and also for her fierce advocacy for foster and kinship carers. I am utterly committed to doing all that I possibly can to help improve the lives of children and young people, their families and, of course, foster and kinship carers.

This week is, of course, Foster and Kinship Carer Week, a week to recognise the generous and outstanding role that carers play, a role that is absolutely critical in supporting, caring for and nurturing children and young people. Carers provide such love, support and an incredibly strong foundation that helps give children and young people the best possible opportunity to grow, to thrive, to succeed and to live happy, fulfilling lives. Our government is proudly supporting them to undertake this vital role.

There are a number of decisions that our government has made and investments and initiatives that we have progressed to better support carers, to better value their role and to demonstrate our recognition of just how incredibly important they are to the children and young people for whom they care and indeed for our whole community. Our government has recently established a carer council so that we can continue to hear from carers and contemplate their experiences in all of the decisions that we make.

The council will be made up of current paid carers and will provide really important advice to me as minister. We have significantly invested in the recent state budget so that carers caring for children 16 and under will receive an additional $50 per fortnight as well as a 4.8 per cent increase in carer payments.

This 4.8 per cent increase, as at the end of July 2023, has been received by more than 1,900 carers with more than 1,800 of those carers also receiving the extra $50 per fortnight. A further 600 respite, emergency and specific child only temporary or post-care carers have also received that really important increase.

We are determined to sustain and support existing carers and attract more people to this incredibly important role. As part of our attraction strategy, the Department for Child Protection, together with community organisations who support carers were out at the Royal Adelaide Show every day talking with South Australians about becoming carers and answering their questions. I thank our partners for participating in this foster and kinship carer stand and I thank the many South Australians who stopped to find out more.

The stand engaged with over 600 conversations and inquiries to receive further information. Every one of those 600 represents generous people who want to be involved and help make a difference of course are potential new carers. I am also really pleased that 80 current carer families stopped by the stand to say hello and show their support to the team.

On Monday, I attended an event with carers to thank them for what they do, to spend time with them and to hear again what is impacting them. I spoke with a lovely couple who have been kinship carers for three children over the past few years. They spoke a lot about the support that the department has been offering to them and their children as they transition from care now that they are aged 19.

Post-care supports are so important, and that is why our government has also invested an additional $9 million into post-care support programs to enable a really smooth transition from care for both the carer and the child. I thank again the over 3,000 carers in this state for having such full and open hearts and for opening their homes, hearts and lives to children and young people.

The SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired. Before I turn to the member for Flinders, I refer briefly to earlier remarks, without prejudice, of course, to the opportunity the member will have to ask a question and an answer to be given. Speakers have long held that members are not responsible to the house for administrative matters with respect to political parties, their actions or in relation to political campaigns or for discussions with other members. For example, in 2008, Speaker Snelling ruled out a question regarding donations to political parties, noting:

…donations to a political party are not the responsibility of a minister: they are administered by the political party and, quite rightly, the minister is not involved in collating information about donations.

Original decisions date particularly from Speaker Ryan in 1974.

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