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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-06-27 Daily Xml
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Child Protection Department

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (16:47): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. How many if any children, who are currently in the care of the Department for Child Protection, are currently the subject of criminal charges?

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (16:47): I don't quite know how to make this clearer. If there are criminal charges, that means that there are investigations. So I will just step you through one more time. I am not going to do anything that discloses personal information about children and young people, and I am not going to in any way negatively impact a police investigation or court matter, but I can tell the member something generally about children and young people in contact with the child protection and family support system: that one in three children in South Australia are notified to the child protection and family support system. Some of them engage in activities that they should not.

I don't understand where the member for Heysen comes from, but that is a fact that is pretty well understood, that for a number of children and young people in contact with the child protection and family support system, or in care, they sometimes engage in things that they should not. Often, the reason that they do so, the reason that may be dually involved in youth justice and in the child protection and family support system, is because of the really difficult issues that they have had to confront in their lives: intergenerational trauma that often means they have seen and experienced terrible, terrible heartbreaking things. I am surprised that this is news to the member for Heysen—

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: —but sometimes, children in contact with the—

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98: the question was seeking data, the number of children. The minister spent two minutes not unreasonably explaining why people might be in that circumstance, but the question was general in its nature, not to a case. It was seeking the number.

The SPEAKER: Does the minister have anything further to add?

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: I have really answered this question, so I refer to my previous answer.

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