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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-17 Daily Xml
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (15:00): My question again is to the Minister for Child Protection. Does the Department for Child Protection have capacity to apply the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle effectively, and is the minister satisfied the DCP is appropriately accountable for its decision-making practices?

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) (15:00): As I think I have just elaborated at length, we are currently going through a process of drafting legislation following a comprehensive review of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act.

The report of that review has been tabled in this house, and I would suggest to the member that he read that report because there is extensive discussion in that report about the need for us to consider how we strengthen the application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle through a consideration of changes to the legislation. As I think I have just outlined at length, that is exactly what we are doing, and rightly so. It is also exactly what we tried to do from opposition, when we moved amendments to the then minister's piece of legislation.

We will keep working to improve, as I have said, and to strengthen the application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. We will work to improve it both through the legislative process and through the investment that we have made in additional Department for Child Protection staff, including the addition of 10 principal Aboriginal consultants, who play a vital role in providing advice to other staff about the application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle.

So that is another area of focus to make improvements, but also, as I said, we will look forward to the establishment of the peak body for Aboriginal children and young people that I am very proud we have funded because, again, that will provide a really important consultation, a really important ongoing set of advice, from the Aboriginal community to myself as the minister and to the department about how we can strengthen that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. I do hope that provides the member with some information about the areas that we are focusing on to strengthen the application of that principle.

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