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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-10-29 Daily Xml
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Bills

Office for Early Childhood Development Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 September 2024.)

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (11:03): I am really pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this bill. This particular policy area is one that I have taken a great deal of interest in, both when I was education minister and also in our time in opposition. I spent quite a lot of time in opposition looking at the evidence for what interventions we could make as a state to improve the chances of all children being successful in their education.

As we know, education is foundational to success in our kind of society. It is utterly necessary. It is important that children are able to not only finish school but finish school well, learn skills that are useful for their day-to-day life and navigating it and also, of course significantly, skills to be able to be employed in reliable and well-remunerated work. Individually, those children deserve it and, collectively, we all benefit.

We are not as exceptionally good an education country as we sometimes like to tell ourselves. We tell ourselves, because we have many examples of excellence, that that is universally the case and that the way that we construct our education system is as good as it gets. It is simply not borne out by any analysis of comparative success across the OECD and similar nations.

What we have is an education system that results in about 25 per cent of children not getting their high school certificate—some other nations get much nearer 90 per cent—and we have a system where disadvantage weighs very heavily on children. If they come from a background of a family that has low household income, and that has low education attainment for the parents, that all too readily translates into lower success for the children of that family. This is not what you would expect if you thought of us as being a nation of the fair go, of meritocracy and of egalitarianism. What you have is a result that you would think is far more consistent with one that was a class-based country. I think we need to be honest about that to ourselves because our children deserve better.

In opposition, the Minister for Education, myself and the Premier collectively spent considerable time contemplating the changes that one could make in South Australia to make this a stronger education system, and a number of those have been put into place by the minister during our time in office. I think the one that probably attracts the least ready political attention but the one that will have the biggest outcome over the medium to long term is this idea of adding a year of school in the form of offering three-year-old preschool.

There is such strong and overwhelming evidence of the difference that that makes. How do I know this? Well, a study was commissioned by the education ministers ministerial council while I was education minister but delivered once we had gone into opposition. It was called Lifting Our Game, and it did a serious analysis of what one should do with early childhood. It recognised that Australia is one of the nations that performs worst in comparison to other nations. We are a country that has underinvested in early childhood and we have, unfortunately, reaped the result of that in the outcomes.

I am talking about early childhood because, of course, we are setting up the Office for Early Childhood Development, which will allow us to deliver three-year-old preschool and will also allow us to offer other services and supports for children in those first years—and I would like to pay tribute to previous Premier Jay Weatherill, who as both education minister and as Premier recognised the importance of the early years.

Those results do not confine themselves. The changes do not confine themselves to the impact on those children while they are small children, but you can see the result that emerges from them as they get towards the end of high school. We know this because of the PISA, which is a test that is applied to 15 year olds across the OECD and partner countries every few years. It is a test that is constructed as problem-solving in various realms: mathematics, science and literacy.

It asks children at the age of 15 to solve problems using those skills, and an enormous amount of data is generated from PISA, an enormous amount: the structure of an education system; the extent to which it is equal or unequal; the kind of resourcing that is devoted; and, of course, crucially for this discussion, what happens in early childhood. It is collected from all of the countries that participate, and then the results are generated.

Most people in this chamber will already be aware that Australia has gone backwards in PISA since it was first started, and it has gone backwards against other nations, but it has also gone backwards against itself, so both absolutely and relatively Australia's results have declined in PISA. That is deeply troubling. I find it far more troubling than NAPLAN, because NAPLAN as a standardised test the variations tend to be very minor and we get very agitated and excited about those variations state by state, but what we see is that, if your parents are less educated and your parents' income is lower, you are likely on average to do worse in NAPLAN, so that tells us something about our education system. It probably does not tell us much about the quality of teaching, which I suspect is pretty evenly spread, but does tell us about the importance of resources and who is sitting next to you in the classroom.

PISA tells us that, as children are getting close to completing their high school education, how ready are they to solve problems presented to them. One of the many lessons PISA tells us is that, if you invest in early childhood before school, you will get better results at the age of 15. Every nation that does better than Australia in PISA has two years of preschool, not one year. Every nation that does better than us believes in a dose of at least 15 hours a week, and that is commonly regarded as a minimum dose.

Some people will recall that getting to the 15 hours was a struggle, when previous governments had to hammer out an arrangement whereby the state pays for some of the preschool hours—12 hours for South Australia (it varies across the country)—and an extra three hours is universal access. I recall bitterly when we had to deal with the Hockey budget under Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne as education minister, making us wait for that extra three hours a week for children at the age of four—it was a political battle that we eventually managed to prise out. It was done on a year-by-year basis, instead of a guarantee, but we are talking about three-year-old preschool.

An analysis that was done that was presented to the education ministers council in 2018, once we had gone into opposition, said that you could see a score point difference at the age of 15 based on investment in early childhood. For every extra dollar you spent on pre-primary education you would get nearly a two-point score difference. If you reduced the child-teacher ratio in pre-primary by one child you would get 2.69, so getting on for a three-point difference. If you increased by 1 per cent the proportion of students who attend pre-primary education—so in your country if you can increase just a little bit—you get a six-point difference, but if you increase the duration by one year, meaning that you go from just four year olds to also three year olds, you get a nearly nine-point score difference in PISA. That is the extent to which that extra year makes a difference.

Unfortunately, that result came out in 2018 to more or less deafening silence across the nation. Victoria did start to take an interest in offering three-year-old preschool. They of course have a very different structure where their delivery is done in a way that is funded essentially by parents and by a subsidy that comes from the commonwealth, because it is treated in a funding sense as if it were child care as opposed to the South Australian model of preschool, which is that there is a government offering as well as a private offering, and the government offering of course does not charge parents to the extent of child care (there is a very small materials-services charge).

I do recall vividly coming off paying for child care and going into preschool with my children: the relief in the amount of money you were stumping up was very marked. But that makes it an expensive proposition in South Australia, yet we have chosen to go ahead with this model. Having discovered that it makes such a big difference and having seen that Australia is so far behind, nearly 70 per cent—around 68-point-something per cent—of three-year-old children are in a preschool education in the OECD, so nearly 70 per cent of three year olds.

In Australia at that time it was only 15 per cent; only 15 per cent of three year olds had access to a preschool education. That was largely because we would see children who were Aboriginal had a right to go, and we would see that there were some elite schools offering what was described as a 'preschool program for three year olds' but not for the great bulk of Australians.

To see that gap, where we think of ourselves as being a pretty good education nation and yet to leave our young children so far behind, seemed to us to be unacceptable. That is why we proceeded to develop a policy that we would bring in three-year-old preschool. We did that policy, to say, 'We will do this, and it will commence in 2026.' Obviously, it takes a ramp-up. I think the Victorians have suggested 10 years of ramp-up for themselves, and that is not least because you need an awful lot more educators and care workers to be able to populate those schools and to make them work.

We recognised that we needed to do that, but we decided that we would have a royal commission to look into the way in which that would be structured in order to really flesh out the complexities of our system, which is a mixed system of preschool being offered by childcare centres and preschools being offered by public, government centres. That royal commission not only investigated the merits of and the mechanisms for three-year-old preschool but also looked significantly at the way that we ought to have additional interventions associated with children who are disadvantaged.

It is very, very important for children who have any form of disadvantage, and that includes developmental disadvantage, which is not always attached to the wealth and social background of the parents, of course. It is also something that exists for some individual children and if not spotted and acted on can really hold that child back. While it is very important, significantly, that disadvantaged children have access to this, in fact it helps all children. It is not something that ought to be reserved only for children in disadvantage; it is something that ought to be recognised as a value for all children.

We asked the royal commission to look into not only the mechanics of the three-year-old preschool offering but also the way in which we would be able to offer more supports for children who had extra needs. I think the result they came up with, offering additional services and additional access for children in disadvantage, was important.

As I say, one of the issues that I think is really worth looking into in some detail is the way in which we can pick up developmental challenges for students, not only because the earlier you get into these the better but because, in fact, for some children you can leave it too late. The wiring of the brain by the time people notice that there is a challenge can mean that there is very little change that can be realised or that the child is so far behind that they find it extraordinarily difficult to catch up, so it is very important that we give that option to children.

I am just looking through this magnificent report that was produced by the people who were commissioned by the education ministers ministerial council. They went up hill and down dale in the seriousness of looking into these issues. It is very disappointing that no-one in Victoria and South Australia really took it too seriously. In South Australia we had to wait to come into our election, of course, to be successful in bringing this in. They look at the developmental advantage on the duration as well as the quality of preschool.

If you have a high-quality preschool and you get one to two years of that, if you had two to three years, even a low-quality service about matches the impact of a high-quality service for only the one to two years. So bearing in mind the amount of service that we offer makes an enormous difference even in a relatively low-quality setting, which of course we have absolutely no intention of offering; we have an intention of offering a very high quality.

That kind of data is what drove us to think about not only the importance of lifting quality standards, which has been a project for some time, started by Julia Gillard when she was federal minister to turn child care from being really about the productivity of the parents into being both the productivity of the parents and the quality of experience for the children, but also, significantly, this dose of early childhood preschool that makes such a massive difference to their life experiences and their life opportunities.

I think the work that has been done by the minister has shown a degree of care and attention to the outcomes that are well worth understanding. This is not an easy policy area. This is an area that has many people already invested in the current system and who already understand the current system and very few people who are actually about to use three-year-old preschool.

Twenty thousand kids are born each year, so in any given year you will have 20,000 kids who will be available for that service, but when you think about the vast majority of families who have kids in all the other years but one particular one, and you have all of the people whose kids have left school and they are more interested in what is happening in postsecondary education or they are now thinking about their own lives and not really about the education system anymore, you do not get a lot of political advantage.

This is not an area that is hunted for in order to get votes. That is why I find it very admirable that both the Premier and the minister have put so much energy and so much money into making this work, because it genuinely is for the right reasons rather than to be responsive to a quick election fix of getting additional voting of additional support for their interests.

Forgive me for being inarticulate in those recent sentences, but I was just at the same time scrolling through this excellent report and finding where Australia sits in the OECD average in the way in which we have invested to date. For investment in early childhood as a proportion of GDP, the OECD average—bear in mind we are one of the richer nations in the OECD, not one of the poorer ones—is 0.81 per cent of GDP. Australia is at 0.49 per cent, so a bit over half. Investment in pre-primary is 0.61 of GDP and for Australia only 0.2 per cent. In participation, as I have described, there is nearly 70 per cent participation across the OECD of three year olds compared with only 15 per cent of our children.

We are also only average in the four-year-old enrolment—in fact, on the year that was being assessed we were very slightly below average, so not world leaders in that. We need to make sure that while we are doing three year olds we continue to emphasise the importance of four year olds. I will also note that we are way below the dosage that is quite common across the OECD. In fact, in Europe four year olds are treated almost as if they are going to school, they are attending so frequently. That said, they are doing it in a way that is utterly play-based and age-appropriate.

This is not about getting little kids sitting in rows and practising for school; this is about little kids playing with teachers who are well educated in how to draw out the skill development that is required and to test how the young children are going and whether they need any additional assistance, but in the kind of environment that is welcoming, play-based and supportive.

I do think when we look back in the future that we will look at this reform as being one of the most crucial that has been undertaken by this government. This is a reformist government; this is a government that has come in with a pretty big agenda that it is steadily working through. But this reform, I think, is the one that will most pay off in the quality of experience for individual young people and collectively in the benefits that we reap from the quality of our education system.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (11:24): I want to begin by thanking all those members for their contributions, including on this side of the chamber. I thank the members for Hurtle Vale, Gibson, Reynell, Dunstan, King, Torrens, Ramsay and, just then, the member for Port Adelaide with an excellent contribution, I thought, that took us back to why we started considering a move to have a second year of preschool in the first place and to the report that landed in 2018 that spoke really strongly and powerfully about what the benefit of a second year of preschool is.

Something that the Deputy Premier reminded me of, and something I think we do not speak about enough, is the link between two years of preschool and the improvement that it can bring to bear on our PISA results for 15 year olds, which is something that we do speak about quite a lot. I think we should, and I include myself in this, do a better job of drawing a link between the early years and the work that is done there and the benefit that can be achieved later in a young person's education and later in a young person's life. Perhaps even as much as 12 years later we might see some of the benefits of some of those standardised tests that we do.

I want to thank all those members, including the member for Morialta, of course, for their contributions on this bill. Several members reflected on the importance of early childhood development and the reforms that bill will underpin, including the introduction of universal access to three-year-old preschool, additional co-design support for Aboriginal children, the expansion of child health and developmental checks—I know that has great bipartisan support in this place—and greater support for a strong and valued early childhood workforce, which is something that has been spoken about for years upon years but I think is only just beginning to be realised. We heard, just earlier this year, the announcement from the federal government that there will be a significant and genuine pay rise for that sector, which is coming and which is certainly well overdue, I think we can all agree.

Importantly, this bill provides the foundation for a connected, collaborative early childhood system that champions change and gives South Australian children a flying start to their life. The bill, in legislating the role of the Office for Early Childhood Development, as recommended by the Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care and the royal commissioner herself, the Hon. Julia Gillard, will provide the office with the functions and powers it needs to further the government's ambitious reform agenda.

The member for Morialta, in his contribution, asked a couple of questions about the office and the approach taken in the bill, and I will respond briefly to those questions. In response to the member's question about why the parliament should legislate for the office, I note that the royal commission recommended an office with a legislated mandate to bring together, through a system stewardship approach, what has been a fragmented early childhood development sector.

I might just speak briefly about that fragmented approach. I think one of the things that has made conversations around early childhood reform difficult and cumbersome is the very opaque nature of the early years, not just in terms of the intersection between federal government and state government about who is responsible for what, which a lot of people find confusing, including how the childcare subsidy works. Perhaps I am just on my lonesome here, but I suspect that I am not. It may not be until you have a child of your own who goes through the childcare phase of their life—and you are grappling with understanding how it works with the childcare centre around making bookings and claiming the childcare subsidy and what you are entitled to or not entitled to—that you actually get a clearer picture, I might say, of how it actually works.

Then, as the Deputy Premier said before, you lay on top of that the fact that, in terms of preschool or kindergarten, it works differently in different states. The Deputy Premier referred to Victoria, which is the state in which I did kindergarten. Victoria has a much bigger role from local councils, as opposed to the South Australian system, which I think is an excellent system—I think it is a better system than the Victorian system. Nonetheless, there are differences in how it works across all state and territory borders. That, combined with the fact that the federal government plays a role and the state government plays a role and then, in some jurisdictions, local council plays a role, makes this whole debate difficult. It has been a slow, drawn out and protracted move towards where we are now, because it has been harder for everyone collectively to get their heads around how it actually works.

I will return to responding to some of the member for Morialta's other points as well. The royal commission found that the legislation would give the office the leave, as it needs, to connect with all levels of government, for profit and not-for-profit providers, which goes to the heart of the recommendation made by the Hon. Julia Gillard. I think it goes to the heart of how our rollout here in South Australia will be different to how it has been rolled out in jurisdictions like Victoria; also community groups and experts, with the intent of moving toward the overall goal, which was recommendation number 1, around reducing the level of developmental vulnerability for South Australian children from the current rate of 23.8 per cent, which is above the national average, to 15  per cent by 2043.

I spoke about things that are a bit cumbersome and complicated. I would have grappled with that myself around how I do a better job and how we do a better job in the public domain around explaining more clearly what we mean by developmental vulnerability, what it actually means in terms of an individual child and, of course, what the flow-on effects can be if that developmental vulnerability is not addressed in terms of what it looks like for that young person on the day they sit down for their first day of reception. If they are in the 23.8 per cent category, and the child next to them or a child of the same age from across the border in Victoria with a lower average developmental vulnerability figure is not in that category, it means they start school behind.

If we were to be completely frank in this place, which I think we should, some catch up and some do not. As children get older—and the Deputy Premier alluded to this—given that 90 per cent of brain development is complete by the age of five, that task of catching up and overcoming issues around developmental vulnerability and the things that underpin it, whether it is social, emotional, cognitive, physical or language, are complex and get exponentially more difficult to address as that young person gets older. It does not get easier, it gets harder, so if you do not invest in the early years in trying to get it right, what you actually do is you spend a lot of money on what you might describe almost as the tertiary end of the process, around sometimes putting bandages on things.

Sometimes we get it right and we can overcome those things, sometimes we do not and then, of course, you can draw what is an incredibly clear and direct link between those things not being successful in the early years and the trajectory of that young person's life in terms of their chances of being gainfully employed, happy, mentally healthy, all those kinds of things; interactions with the juvenile justice and adult correctional systems. There are really clear and quite depressing links between when we get it right in the early years and when we do not get it right in the early years and what it means for that human being when they get older.

That is why recommendation number 1 is getting that level of developmental vulnerability down from 23.8 to 15 per cent by 2043, and I endeavour to do a better job of communicating publicly around what that actually means in plain English so that those families who have children, or will have children, can understand why it is so important that we make a real push into that space.

Again, the Deputy Premier referred to things outside the fundamental delivery of the 15 hours of three-year-old preschool in terms of the other wraparound supports that we will be putting in for three year olds and four year olds, those things outside the actual provision of 15 hours of play-based learning per week for three year olds and four year olds. That will go towards getting that level of developmental vulnerability down. There are other things; it is not just having bums on seats, so to speak, but there are other supports that were recommended by the royal commission that are needed to make sure we address all those things that fall into the category or categories of developmental vulnerability.

The royal commission found that providing for the office in legislation will formalise its value and purpose as a system steward of the early childhood development system and provide a long-term commitment to its role. The government has publicly accepted that recommendation.

I note there are various ways in which an office or agency may be established or provided for under legislation in our state. The member for Morialta outlined a number of those in his contribution. It is not particularly unusual for an act of parliament to provide for an office, body or officer with statutory functions towards important public aims. I will give a few examples here: the Office for Ageing Well, the Industry Advocate, the Cross Border Commissioner and the Suicide Prevention Council, just to name a few.

The member for Morialta asked whether the office would be subject to the strictures of the Legislative Council's Statutory Authorities Review Committee. The short answer to that is no. The office, as recommended by the royal commission, will act as a system steward but within a departmental context.

The Statutory Authorities Review Committee is established under part 5A of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, with the function to inquire into, consider and report on any statutory authority to it under the act. Pursuant to section 3 of the Parliamentary Committees Act, 'statutory authority' means:

a body corporate that is established by an Act and—

(a) is comprised of or includes, or has a governing body comprised of or including, persons or a person appointed by the Governor, a Minister or an agency or instrumentality of the Crown; or

(b) is subject to control or direction by a Minister; or

(c) is financed wholly or partly out of public funds…

Under the bill the office will not be a body corporate and therefore will not be a statutory authority subject to the functions of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee.

Since the introduction of the bill I have also had the privilege of meeting with the First Nations Voice to Parliament—I understand this is one of the first bills to go through that process—to hear its views about the bill and its suggestions for areas where the bill could be improved. That has been formally considered now, and I thank the members of the Voice for their advice and their insight and their willingness to share their community's perspective, stories and experiences. I will be moving some amendments in the committee stage on the suggestion of the First Nations Voice.

Until then, I would like to just thank all those members again for their contributions, and I look forward to taking this bill through the committee stage. I must say it has given me a sense of genuine hope in terms of the nature of the debate around this bill in here, which has been a very constructive one, I think, from both sides of parliament. That is excellent, given that we are dealing with an issue around which there is a lot of bipartisan support relating to what we do around providing better support and education and care for our youngest South Australians.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 and 2 passed.

Clause 3.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I move:

Amendment No 1 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 2, line 9 to page 3, line 2 [clause 3, definition of Aboriginal child]—Delete the definition and substitute 'Aboriginal child or Aboriginal person means a child or person (as the case requires) who—'

(a) is of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent; and

(b) regards themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (or, in the case of a young child, is regarded as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander by a member of their family or community); and

(c) is accepted as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander by a relevant Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community,

(and a reference to Aboriginal, or an Aboriginal family or organisation, is to be construed accordingly);

This amendment is regarding deleting the definition of 'Aboriginal child' and substituting it with 'Aboriginal child or Aboriginal person' instead. This is from feedback that we received from the Voice around the language, and most of the amendments that we are proposing to move in this committee stage are around language.

Various functions in the bill have application to Aboriginal adults through reference to 'Aboriginal families, communities and organisations', and a proposed amendment to clause 8 includes a reference to 'an Aboriginal person'. Feedback from the State First Nations Voice to Parliament emphasised the importance of recognising family and community in the legislation. As I indicated at the close of the second reading, this amendment is the first of a number of government amendments I will be moving based on the advice and suggestions from the State First Nations Voice to Parliament.

The Voice provided detailed feedback on the bill and a range of suggestions to support the best outcomes. I want to reiterate my thanks to them for engaging in the proposed amendments in a constructive manner, and I think they are sensible.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I will have a couple of questions on the amendment in a moment. Firstly, I indicate my gratitude to the minister for engaging in his second reading reply with some of the questions I posed in my second reading speech. I indicate that will probably save us some time during this committee stage. I will not reprosecute those arguments that he addressed in his second reading reply.

I will talk to colleagues in the coming weeks, between the houses, and give some consideration to the argument that the minister has put, which I am sure will inform the position the opposition ultimately takes on the third reading of the bill in the Legislative Council. We can manage that then. It is a question of judgement in relation to the value of having a legislated office as opposed to one put in place under the usual arrangements in the Public Sector Act. So I thank the minister for that and, as I said, that will probably save us 10 or 15 minutes today.

In relation to this amendment and the other amendments that are to follow, as the minister has said, I think this is the first bill that I am aware of that has come through the parliament that has had amendments as a result of consideration by the First Nations Voice to Parliament. On that basis and for the benefit of the house, I wonder if the minister could explain the process of how that engagement worked in a practical sense.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am very happy to do that. Although formal consultation on the bill occurred before the State First Nations Voice was fully stood up, if I can use that language, the Voice secretariat was briefed on the bill by the chief executive of the office, Kim Little, in July of this year and indicated support for the work of the office and the inclusion of functions in the bill in relation to Aboriginal children.

Following the bill's introduction, the Voice provided a detailed response to the bill and sought further information about the work of the office and, in particular, how Aboriginal communities would be engaged and Aboriginal perspectives incorporated into the design of the government's early childhood reforms. On 24 September this year, I, along with the chief executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development and the relevant staff of that office, met with the members of the Voice to hear their views on the bill and to share with them information about how the government's early childhood reforms would work to support the development of Aboriginal children.

Following that meeting, the office provided the Voice further information about operational aspects of the office and policy design, including the role of an Aboriginal co-design governance group to oversee and provide high-level monitoring in regard to the early years policy reforms, such as Aboriginal three-year-old preschool initiatives and the Aboriginal early childhood workforce strategy. The office has expressed to the secretariat its interest in engaging with the Voice about the design and delivery of the reforms and whether this may be sought or welcomed by members. As a result of the feedback submitted by the Voice, this is the first amendment to the bill that I propose.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I am sorry I did not take perfect notes as I was going but, to clarify, there was a briefing provided by Kim Little in July to, I assume, the secretariat of the Voice, then there was the meeting the minister and the chief executive had on 24 September or thereabouts, and then there was the subsequent provision of follow-up information. I think I have that right. Can the minister describe whether the meeting on 24 September was with the entire group of elected members of the Voice or a subgroup, a representative group? Can the minister explain who the minister met with and how that procedure worked?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I would describe it as a large proportion of the Voice membership. Basically, those who could make themselves available were the ones who did.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: In relation to the engagement with the Voice on this bill, is it expected that all bills that the minister is dealing with—I know that there is one that he is dealing with on the list in relation to oversight and advocacy bodies, for example, and there may be other bills that are going through the process within the minister's department at the moment—will go through this process where there is a briefing to the Voice, an opportunity for a larger group to discuss it, or is it a selected bill either of the minister's suggestion or on request of the representatives of the Voice?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Obviously, this was quite early in the existence of the Voice, so how it will work moving forward might be slightly different in the sense that there was a formal consultation on the bill before the State First Nations Voice was fully stood up. Moving forward from here, obviously, they are fully operational and stood up, so I think the anticipation is that we will seek to consult with them on bills. I think for the bill that you mentioned, though, that consultation may have occurred before they were stood up.

We will have them on the list to consult and we will offer briefings, and then I would anticipate that they will let us know whether or not they will take up the offer of that briefing. If not, then we proceed; if they do, then it would be a process similar to this one in terms of how I intend to operate with it. I would ideally like to be part of that briefing so I can do my best to answer their questions and they get a chance to ask me questions directly.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 4 and 5 passed.

Clause 6.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I move:

Amendment No 2 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 4, line 14 [clause 6(2)(d)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 3 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 4, line 17 [clause 6(2)(e)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 4 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 4, line 30 [clause 6(2)(j)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 5 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 4, line 32 [clause 6(2)(k)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 6 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 4, line 34 [clause 6(2)(l)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

These amendments amend various subclauses of clause 6 to delete the word 'promote' and substitute it with the word 'drive', which was a suggestion made by the State First Nations Voice to Parliament:

A stronger term than 'promote' should be used to convey a more active and assertive approach to the office's functions.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I should indicate in this context that the opposition was made aware of these amendments this morning. Presumably, they must have been looked at by cabinet yesterday, is my guess, and I appreciate that. I am not seeking to have a concern. I appreciate the effort the minister's office has gone to at short notice to give me some information about this but do indicate that I will obviously have a chance to discuss these amendments with my colleagues in between the houses, so if there are any concerns we will raise them at that stage in the Legislative Council on the merits. I do not propose to go to the merits now.

In relation to the discussion about how the Voice has been interacted with in this way, my recollection is that the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People had made representations to the first draft of the bill that informed the second draft of the bill. As she is also an elected member of the Voice, was she one of the advocates who spoke with the minister on this occasion as well?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Commissioner Lawrie was not at the meeting on 24 September.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: When did the Voice provide the government with their formal feedback on their proposed amendments, and did the government accept all their suggestions?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: We are trying to find the date—and I am confident we will, if we have a little bit more time—but I am reminded that we did not accept all the suggestions from the Voice. The ones we are presenting here as amendments are the ones that we did.

I think it was 20 September, I am told, that was the date of the formal feedback being provided by the Voice, but I can also tell you that not all the feedback that was given has been accepted and not all that is being proposed to be included are in these amendments today.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I have just one or two more final questions. If that feedback was provided on 20 September, my recollection is that was prior to the meeting the minister had with the representatives of the Voice. I am wondering whether they had any further formal submissions after the meeting with the minister.

My second question—I will include it here, it may save us some time later—is this: is there any publicly available document identifying the Voice's other suggestions to government on their full set of recommendations, acknowledging that the minister has identified that not all were accepted by the government?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am advised there was no further formal feedback provided by the Voice. I was not part of that communication between the Voice and the Office for Early Childhood Development, but I think what you would characterise as their earlier feedback was more questions about what would be the implications of how things would work rather than them putting to us other suggestions around changes we would actually make to the bill, if that makes sense. That is the best way I can characterise it.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: If I can just clarify: the characterisation that the minister has just offered, where there was a more informal approach from the Voice to the department, with questions of clarifications and changes, am I right in saying that feedback to the department has led to this set of amendments? Is it right, then, to characterise that there was other informal feedback given that did not lead to further amendments? Is that correct, or is there a letter or a memo or a submission of some sort that has come from the Voice to the department?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am told there was just the one formal submission made by the Voice and what followed after that was some back and forth between their members and the secretariat around what the implications of that would be but no subsequent formal submission, as I am told, by the Voice with other suggestions or other requested changes.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Thank you very much for that clarification. My last question on this one is: is that formal submission publicly available either from the Voice or through the Department for Education or other processes?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am told that as a matter of course we have not published submissions from groups as part of these processes, but I think it would probably be a question for the Voice if they wanted to release that.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 7.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I move:

Amendment No 7 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 9 [clause 7(1)(a)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 8 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 15 [clause 7(1)(d)]—Delete 'promote' and substitute 'drive'

Amendment No 9 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 19 [clause 7(2)(a)]—Delete 'should' and substitute 'will'

Amendment No 10 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 20 [clause 7(2)(a)]—Delete 'promoted (including by promoting' and substitute 'driven (including by driving'

Amendment No 11 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 22 [clause 7(2)(b)]—Delete 'should be supported (including' and substitute 'will be supported (including, but not limited to,'

Amendment No 12 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, line 27 [clause 7(2)(c)]—After 'children' insert '(including any developmental trauma)'

These amendments are very similar to the amendments made to clause 6 around deleting 'promote' and substituting it with 'drive' for the reasons I set out in terms of the amendments we just moved to clause 6: delete 'should' and substitute 'will'; delete 'promoted (including by promoting' and substitute 'driven (including by driving'; delete 'should be supported (including' and substitute 'will be supported (including, but not limited to,'; and amendment No. 12, after the word 'children' in clause 7, page 5, line 27 insert '(including any developmental trauma)'.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: As I said before, we will have a closer look at these between the houses.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 8.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I move:

Amendment No 13 [EduTrainSkills–1]—

Page 5, after line 37—Insert:

(2a) Without otherwise limiting subsection (2), at least 1 member of each committee must be an Aboriginal person.

That is feedback, of course, from the Voice around making sure that there is Aboriginal representation on any committees that might be formed under this bill by the chief executive or the minister and ensuring that there is Aboriginal representation on that committee.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I have a question of clarification in relation to the nature of committees that this will impact. My question is: are there committees already in existence in the office as it is currently constituted that will carry over into the new legislated office and will therefore immediately attract this expectation? Are there other committees that the minister envisages being covered by this clause and, indeed, the amendment as well?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am informed that the exception is MECAF, with which the member for Morialta is familiar, the minister's committee that I have established—the early childhood advisory forum—which would fall under the purview of this amendment. There is the need to make sure it has Aboriginal representation. That is the only existing committee that would be affected.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I suspect I know the answer to this question. Within Public Service departments there are, from time to time, committees of a somewhat informal nature that tend to be formed, meeting regularly. The same public servants of a particular functional capacity might be meeting on a weekly or monthly basis with the minister, or indeed the chief executive, to undergo consideration of certain operational duties. Can the minister clarify that it would not be the expectation of the bill that this clause would capture such operational informal committees, if you like, but just those formally constituted for a specific purpose in the way described in the bill?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Yes, I can confirm that.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 9 passed.

Clause 10.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: As discussed in the second reading, clause 10 sets out the powers of the chief executive to ask other state authorities to provide information. Regarding the operation of the office as it is at the moment, without this legislative power, can the minister advise if there are examples that he is aware of of the need for this power? Are there examples where the Chief Executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development has requested information from other government instrumentalities and they have not provided that information as requested without requiring this power?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am told, no, there has not been a situation thus far where one of those bodies that has had information requested of it by the Office for Early Childhood Development has needed to use those powers.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Is the minister aware of any examples of government agencies or departments under his authority who have requested information in the way that this clause describes of another government department and not being provided with it?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: The best answer I can give the member for Morialta is: not to our knowledge. We are trying to seek a more detailed answer by checking with the Chief Executive of the Office for Early Childhood Development about whether that might have been the case but at this stage the answer is no. I might just add that, in communications between the Office for Early Childhood Development and the Education Standards Board, I believe the Education Standards Board gave some feedback as part of the consultation of the bill with some suggestions around the strengthening of some clauses to make sure that they had the legislative cover to provide the information that might have been needed.

I understand that was accepted and has been included in the bill to make sure they are comfortable, but with that exception, we are not aware of any cases where information was requested by the OECD to another department, and they said that they were not willing to give that, but I am happy to come back to you as soon as we have an answer on that if that is okay.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: That you for providing that answer. If the driving motivation behind this clause is actually to ensure the ESB has cover in providing information that they are not prohibited from otherwise providing under their act, then that would make sense. If you could just clarify that, included in the same answer between the houses, I would be most grateful.

Clause passed.

Clause 11.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Notwithstanding the comments I made earlier appreciating the minister engaging with comments in my second reading speech, and that will save us some time here, I will just put a couple of quick questions through. Has the minister received any feedback from organisations that were not supportive of the measures in this clause?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I am informed the answer is no, the only exception being the answer I gave to the member for Morialta's previous question around the ESB providing what could better be characterised as advice around how a clause could be strengthened to make sure they have the legislative protection to be a part of the information sharing that is required. Just to add, I have confirmation from the chief executive that there were no other groups that expressed displeasure or unhappiness, if I could put it that way.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Either now, or if the minister prefers in writing between the houses, I would be appreciative of a list of any agencies, non-government organisations or institutions that were given the opportunity or were encouraged or requested to provide feedback on either the bill or—my particular interest is in the current clause—clause 11.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Happy to provide that between the houses, thank you.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (12 to 18) and long title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (12:11): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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