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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Children and Young People (Safety and Support) Bill

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments be agreed to.

I am really pleased and indeed very proud that today this bill, a long time in the making, has made progress and will now become an act. On Tuesday night, actually in the very early hours of Wednesday morning, following months and months and months of listening, discussion around contesting ideas and a number of draft and final amendments, the Legislative Council passed this bill.

There are many people to thank who have strongly inputted over the past couple of years to help to get to this moment, a moment that takes us forward, that takes forward the foundation of how children and young people in this state are supported, a bill that fundamentally reforms. I take this opportunity to thank the Hon. Rob Simms and the Hon. Frank Pangallo for their important support of the government's amendments on the bill and thank the other crossbench members who suggested and championed amendments, some of which are included in this final bill we consider today.

I will offer my gratitude to a number of others in a moment, but first I will summarise the far-reaching reforms this new legislation progresses. These landmark reforms follow extensive input from the sector, broader community, birth and carer families, peak bodies, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, workers, unions and, crucially, the remarkably wise and strong children and young people themselves for whom this legislation has been shaped through the review of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 and through multiple other opportunities to contribute.

I sincerely appreciate the time, energy and effort that was put into submissions and feedback that was received as part of the review, and since, and which has helped to shape this legislation. This collective effort reflects a genuine and shared commitment to significantly reform and transform the system, strengthen the existing framework and retain parts of the current act we know work well.

This bill progresses extensive reform work already underway in ways that help improve the lives of children, young people and their families. The bill provides a whole-of-government, whole-of-community and whole-of-sector approach to child protection and family support. It rightly elevates the voices of children in decisions about their lives and puts maximum effort into reunifying them with their families where that is right for them and helps ensure they are well cared for and able to thrive when that is not possible. It includes a progressive and much needed emphasis on Aboriginal-led decision-making and the requirement to convene family group conferences for Aboriginal families. We want Aboriginal families to be empowered to lead decisions about their children's lives and we want to progressively delegate authority to Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations.

After much discussion, this bill enshrines the safety principle which ensures that the safety of the child or young person must always be the priority in determining whether or not to remove a child from their family. This safety-first approach provides utter clarity to the remarkable workers entrusted to make these difficult, heartbreaking decisions. This bill is progressive in its introduction of a new strengthened best interest principle, which means every decision relating to a child is focused on, among other things, keeping them safe, protecting their rights, considering their need for love and attachment and promoting their development.

The bill embeds the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander principle to the standard of active efforts and introduces a statement of commitment to children and young people in contact with the system and to birth families. Amendments that have now been moved through committee include:

new clauses to build on the government's amplification of the child's voice in decision-making;

changes to family group conferencing provisions to ensure public reporting on statistics, and further strengthening how a conference will be convened;

a new complaints management/feedback process;

recognition of the peak bodies that represent the sector, children and young people, their families, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families and carers;

a new provision that introduces a scheme to establish by regulation for cultural support to be provided to Aboriginal children and young people;

specific quality of care guidelines, replacing care concerns and assessing reports of harm to children;

insertion of a timeframe of 60 days within which an internal review must be completed; and

doubling the time for referring complaints to the Ombudsman to two years.

This Children and Young People (Safety and Support) Bill delivers on the government's promise to help improve the lives of children and their families and to reform the child protection and family support system. We have worked hard to reach an agreed position on some important elements of the legislation and I am really grateful to everyone in both houses of parliament who have contributed to this process.

Reform is really hard. I am so proud that we have stayed the course and through this bill that we advance far-reaching reform. It is time now to get on with the hard work of implementing changes in partnership with the community and care providers, the people with direct experience of the system, the government agencies who support families in need and with children, young people and their families.

We would not be at this point without the diligence, tireless work and shared commitment to advancing change through legislation, change that really will help to make a difference in the lives of those who most need us. I thank Mark Herbst from parliamentary counsel for his important work on this and forever wise counsel. I thank Elizabeth Boxall and Alex Boardman and our whole DCP legal team whose wisdom and capacity to work to get the best possible outcomes have always been on full display and steadfast. I thank DCP Chief Executive Jackie Bray and Deputy CE Darian Shephard-Bayly. Their steadfast leadership, guidance and support have been so very valuable.

I again broadly thank the whole sector, and in particular I wholeheartedly thank Connecting Foster and Kinship Carers SA, The Reily Foundation, CREATE Foundation, and Child and Family Focus SA. Their collective, fierce, robust and at times quiet advocacy has helped to reshape this bill. I very much look forward to working with them on how we implement this legislation to ensure the sector and the workforce have the best possible procedures, practice and policy in place and to ensure that children and young people continue to be at the heart of all that we do.

I speak directly to the great number of children and young people in contact with the system who have influenced this bill. These children and young people have often been referred to as vulnerable, and they are, but they are also wise, strong, intuitive and clear about what they need for their lives. My promise to them is that I will never stop listening to them and for them I will never stop trying, striving to make the best possible decisions and changes that are required to help their lives to be improved. This bill is for them and as it now progresses I note again, as I have done in many fora, that it is our love and care for them that will and does bring us together and unify our efforts.

Finally, I thank my ministerial office team. They are extraordinary and, as I do, they care so very deeply about why we do what we do and for whom. This commitment has seen them work relentlessly toward this moment, and always with respect through listening and considering the many diverse views in this space: views that are diverse and deeply held and felt because this area of public policy is life-changing.

I am blessed to be supported every day and throughout this process by Senior Adviser Matthew Pearce and Chief of Staff Ruth Sibley. Matthew Pearce is so very clever and so very committed. His knowledge of this legislation and of the system is exemplary and, so importantly, his knowledge of how it impacts people's lives is remarkable. At every step and in every conversation he has understood this and worked so hard to help ensure that this impact on people's lives is taken account of and that people are heard, and that how things can work best for the diverse range of groups and people is reflected in this complex piece of work.

I have no doubt whatsoever that, as it has in relation to this bill, his contribution to everything he does will make a profound difference. I also have no doubt that Mr Pearce's intelligence and capacity will see him continue to lead and make a difference at senior levels across government and, in fact, in whatever he turns his mind to into the future. His personal support of me strengthens me every single day. I thank him for this.

I honour the beautiful support I receive from Chief of Staff Ruth Sibley. She is the most excellent woman. She leads our team and she leads in whatever sphere she is in. She is generous in that leadership, always looking out for and empowering others in their leadership journey. She is also so clever and so strategic. She has a unique ability to quickly see different places from which people are coming to help ensure outcomes reflect that diversity. She knows instinctively when to move forward, and to keep bringing people together as we do.

Mr TEAGUE: I rise, noting the return of the bill to this house after what has been a lengthy debate in the Legislative Council, one that I have respected from this distance and continued to participate in as the shadow minister for child protection.

Can I say at the outset that the efforts that we all undertake in this space are necessarily towards the state's most important responsibility; that is, attending to the needs of our state's most vulnerable children. If there is one thing I share with the minister in this regard, it is towards their flourishing and thriving, albeit in circumstances of having faced, in many cases, the greatest challenges that children might face. That they are in need of the supports that are provided by the department is something that we all need to address in our day-to-day lives.

The opposition does not share the government's view about how child protection is best structured and directed in this state. I find myself referring to my second reading contribution when the bill was last in this house. I reflected at that time that my expectation was that the principles guiding child protection in this state would remain controversial. If the last months have proved anything, it is that that is certainly true.

What surprised me in about January, perhaps as a result of the select committee process in the Legislative Council, was that what emerged over those weeks and into the early stages of this year was that, as well as that existence of a controversy about how best to proceed in child protection, there emerged a solidarity, including, importantly, in what might be described as 'the sector', among key and credible and sincere stakeholders that participate in the process of legislative reform outside this place.

Having indicated an expectation that core areas would remain controversial, I think that was proved up, to the extent of that expression of solidarity, by the sector. It is one thing to have a debate about the best direction to proceed—circumstances where the government has both the initiative and the control of the process—it is another to then see emerging the kind of consensus that emerged in the course of the process in the other place.

So I just reiterate that the result of what has occurred in the Legislative Council is that these matters of paramount principle indeed remain controversial. We will now see a very clear difference of approach as between the government on the one hand and the opposition on the other. What the government has determined to do—and I do not mean this in any other than a factual observation—is to continue to chart the course that was established back in 2016 ahead of the 2017 act: the continuation of the adoption as key principle of child protection, safety as the driving paramount principle.

It is an approach that remains novel and, increasingly, it is an approach that runs contrary to what the rest of the country, indeed the rest of the world, including the UN, tells us is the better pathway, which is the adoption of a paramount principle that the best interests of the child ought to be determinative in guiding all that is done in this space.

It might sound simplistic to hear the debate described in terms of safety and best interests, but in many ways, whether one turns to the scholarly contributions that have been led by South Australian of the Year Professor Leah Bromfield, all the way through to those who are involved in the day-to-day work of caring for those vulnerable children, advocating for reunification of children with their family, advocating for greater supports for those involved in out-of-home care, better complaints mechanisms and so on and so forth, there is a clear unity of view that I have observed about the importance of adopting the best interests of the child as the paramount principle, embracing as it does the great complexity of life that leads to the best possible outcomes for those most vulnerable children, indeed towards their thriving.

I do not say all of this in some sort of theoretical context either. We are here on budget day and we have seen now, over the course of the period since 2016, the establishment of the Department for Child Protection, the establishment of the paramount principle of safety and all that has followed. Particularly over these last four years, we have seen a consistent pattern of increasing numbers of children in care, and particularly in state care. It is an area that we all agree is not where children ought to be. However, on budget day we see each year that that has come at an ever-increasing cost and indeed at a cost that is greater than even the ever-increased provision for child protection.

As the shadow minister for child protection, I have never come at the budget for child protection with a view to whether or not we are spending more money than is warranted. However, I have asked the question from day one at each turn whether the money we spend in child protection, as it increases, and really quite dramatically to transform the size of that department—is more money into child protection a sign of success or of failure? I expect I will be asking that question again in the next short while.

It is not as though the process to date has led us to a place where fewer resources are required because fewer children are engaged in these most acute circumstances, quite to the contrary. What has been described as an ongoing crisis, and what has been described by me and by others as an ongoing controversy about where the paramount principles in child protection ought to be articulated and how, will continue. That is a matter that I think is going to continue to be of keen interest to all South Australians.

I want to pay tribute to several leaders in the sector in particular, as well as to those members of the Legislative Council who have engaged in the process that has led to the bill coming back to us today. Throughout that period there has been a solidarity within the sector. As the minister has said, participants in the sector speak sometimes quietly, carefully and thoughtfully; sometimes they speak up and speak loudly. In all their ways, I have found that the advocacy of those who are engaged in the sector has been characterised by its sincerity and its commitment, and I am humbled by what I have seen in that regard.

I single out in particular the chief executive of Uniting Communities, Simon Schrapel AM. who over these last months has been a leading member of a group that have described themselves as the Leadership Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Back in February, published in InDaily, Simon, writing on behalf of the other members of that coalition, wrote a very thoughtful piece about where we were then at in the debate—and remember, that was at a relatively early stage of the Legislative Council debate that has since ensued. Just to quote part of Simon Schrapel's observations then, he said:

Generally speaking, South Australia's child protection system is often seen as a wicked and, ultimately, unsolvable problem.

It's not.

Many of us also believe that it's something that affects someone else—other people's children, other parents and other families.

Wrong again.

One in three South Australian children will have some interaction, sometimes unknown to them or their families, with our child protection department during their childhood.

Simon then goes on to talk about the reasons why child protection is something that affects so many South Australians directly and that there is cause for hope in improving how we address child protection challenges in this state, but that we must do so by adopting a different approach than what has been adopted over the better part now of a decade. It was for that reason that the coalition members, among others, determined that it was necessary and worthwhile to move from a position of doing what could be done with the amendment bill as it was proposed and, rather, taking an approach of insisting on changes of a core nature before supporting the passage of the bill.

I reiterate again for the committee the four key principles that were articulated by the coalition for child protection at that time and they have maintained consistently ever since: first, elevating the best interests of the child as the paramount principle; second, the consistent application of the 'significant harm' threshold throughout the bill; third, the expanding and amplifying of what is described in the bill as 'active efforts', and I appreciate that there is some discussion about the particular description there; and fourth, the strengthening of provisions that support family reunification.

So those four key principles have been articulated throughout the course of this year. They remain key principles that will remain controversial and, I am sure, will continue to be the subject of advocacy in the time ahead. The fact is that the coalition has not been satisfied that it has heard a credible response from the government on those four matters of principle; neither has the opposition, and more work will need to be done. I just note for the record those other participants, members of the leadership coalition. I have recognised Simon Schrapel AM, the CE of Uniting Communities. I also recognise and appreciate the input and engagement of Rohan Feegrade, Lutheran Care; Craig Rigney, KWY; Alisa Willis, Junction Australia; Sue Raw, Baptist Care SA; and Shelley Wall, Infinity Community Solutions.

I look forward to continuing to engage productively in this space, including with a view, ultimately, to reforms that more fully reflect those principles, as we all do, with a view to moving child protection away from a conversation that is presently far too often conducted in circumstances of crisis and of difficulty and into one that is characterised by the kind of success that Simon Schrapel has so well articulated, including in that contribution back in February that I have noted.

The opposition, as I have indicated to the government, will not be taking a step by step, amendment by amendment approach. That process has already taken some time. It is all very well documented, and those who have been following the process in the other place have plenty on the record already, including what has transpired just earlier this week. I make that contribution and look forward to continuing to debate further reforms in this area.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the minister wish to make any other closing remarks?

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: I just want to say thank you to the deputy leader for his contribution.

Motion carried.

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