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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-04 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

SELECT COMMITTEE ON FAMILIES SA

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. C.V. Schaefer:

That the interim report of the committee be noted.

(Continued from 12 November 2008. Page 630.)

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (20:36): I rise to speak on this motion relating to the noting of the interim report of the Select Committee on Families SA. This interim report deals with the establishment and the ultimate cessation of the operations of the SOS Village. First, I want to say that the Families SA select committee was appointed largely at the initiative of the Hon. Ann Bressington to hear evidence relating to the operations of Families SA.

The committee has received a great deal of evidence from not only the department itself but from a number of persons who have had direct personal involvement in the department and also from number of experts familiar with the department's policies and practices. It is an important subject and it is an important select committee.

It is a great pity that members of the government were opposed to the establishment of the committee in the first place and have, in effect, boycotted it. From the evidence thus presented, it is quite easy to understand why the government would wish to run away from an inquiry of this kind. It is a deplorable indictment of the government that it did so because, as anyone who is familiar with the child protection system in this state would know, our child protection agencies—just as those in almost every other jurisdiction—are under considerable pressure, and there are a number of issues that have not been addressed. As a member of the committee, I look forward to the production of our final report.

This interim report is an important document, because it highlights by way of particular example how the department operates and what its philosophies are. It is worth repeating and putting on the record in Legislative Council the sad history of the SOS Children's Village.

SOS-Kinderdorf International is an organisation which operates in over 130 countries. It provides homes for more than 60,000 children and adolescents in over 450 villages around the world. It operates so-called villages which provide children with long-term, family-like care. In 1993, SOS-Kinderdorf International, through its local affiliate headed by Mr Ellis Wayland, proposed to the South Australian government that SOS would establish and operate a village in South Australia at its own expense. It was proposed that SOS would incorporate and be controlled by a local management committee and that it would purchase the land, build the village and operate it.

The then government of the day, headed by minister David Wotton, approved the proposal and encouraged the organisation to establish the village. It was true to its word. SOS purchased land and built a village comprising, I think, some eight houses, which were proposed to house not only the children but also their carers. The village employed 15 staff, and it was opened in September 1996.

The government entered into a protocol with the SOS village relating to its operations, which were conducted at Seaford Rise. The number of allotments purchased was quite considerable (13 allotments). The village comprised 11 houses, eight of which were family houses. Each house had five bedrooms (one with an ensuite bathroom) and other facilities. The village had the capacity to house up to 40 children, and it operated between 1996 and 2005 when, amidst controversy, it was closed. It was closed for reasons which the committee found as follows. It accepted Mr Wayland's explanation that, when the government changed in 2002, the department and its political masters were no longer as enthusiastic about a private operation operating as a registered foster home. I think it is worth quoting what Mr Wayland said, as follows:

The bureaucrats...argued that the SOS model, based as it is on motherhood, was too simplistic and out of date...They still argue that children in care, having suffered separation from their birth families, need more sophisticated care than a mother can give, i.e., case workers and social workers, supported by psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, mentors, counsellors, etc., etc. The bureaucrats...simply did not want SOS. The reasons were hidden behind a veil of bureaucratic secrecy.

The SOS model is based fundamentally on a 'mother'. As such, this terminology was politically incorrect, and the only term acceptable to the department was 'carer'. Even children in care were to be referred to as 'clients' and not 'children'.

Perhaps I should have explained a little earlier that each of these houses was run by a woman designated the 'mother', and she actually lived on the premises and was responsible for establishing a long-term, loving, family-like relationship. This is particularly important in the SOS model because they specialised in having groups of siblings of various ages who would live in the one place for a considerable period of time if relations with their family had broken down.

Mr Wayland defended the conditions under which the mothers worked. He said they were paid $40,000 per annum and received their own accommodation from the SOS. They were paid living expenses, petrol expenses and the like. However, according to Mr Wayland, and I think it is easy enough to understand, the ASU pay demands would have resulted in massive additional operating expenses because the mothers who were on duty 24 hours a day—as are mothers generally, who are entirely unpaid—would be paid overtime and massive amounts which, clearly, would have been crippling.

It may be emphasised here, as is noted in the report, that the remuneration that SOS was paying the women—some $40,000 a year to be the mothers of children—may be contrasted with what the government pays its own foster carer mothers in their own house. They get $7,000 to $15,000-odd to do much the same task yet, because of that opposition, the SOS model became unviable from a financial point of view. Mr Wayland said, and the committee accepted:

We could not possibly meet the ASU pay demands, which would result in massive additional operating expenses. They wanted the mothers paid double time for sleeping in their own home, time and a half if they had to attend to the child, a lunch break if they were required to serve meals, a loading because they were cooking, another loading if they were suffering any sort of stress because of child behaviour, and so it went on. It was just absurd.

The government was unable to reach any agreement with SOS. SOS pulled out and the government had to buy the village and continues to operate it at a vastly increased expense to the public payroll.

The committee concluded that the SOS village made a significant and worthwhile contribution to the South Australian child protection system during the 10 years of its operation. The committee considered that the circumstances which ultimately led to the cessation of the involvement of SOS in the village were deplorable and reflect poorly on the department and on the government. In particular, the claim made by minister Weatherill that the SOS model of care was, to use his word, 'dodgy' was both offensive and unwarranted.

The select committee believed that the department was not sufficiently flexible in its thinking or practice to accommodate the model of care offered by SOS. The committee accepted the point emphasised by the department that through delegation from the minister it has legal powers and responsibilities for young children under the guardianship of the minister. The legal point was confirmed in the two protocols which govern relationships between the department and SOS. However, the committee considered that the department was overly rigid in its application of the rules and unnecessarily restricted the capacity of SOS staff in handling residents.

The evidence presented to the select committee establishes that the government, which came into office in March 2002, was not sympathetic to the SOS model as to the employment of mothers with 24-hour a day responsibilities. This model was also, as I have mentioned, anathema to the Australian Services Union which was accustomed to award conditions, penalty rates, etc. Given minister Weatherill's stated view that the SOS model was unsustainable in the Australian industrial context, it is not surprising the government did not provide the political leadership and the financial or other assistance which would have enabled the SOS village to prosper.

The fact that the government was prepared to purchase the village in 2004 and continue to operate it at vastly increased costs demonstrates that the government recognises the need for such a facility. It also suggests that the government was antipathetic to the involvement of non-government enterprise in general and to SOS in particular.

The victims of this blinkered approach were the young people who had benefited from the care and support provided by SOS over the years. We believe that South Australia is the poorer for the departure of a dedicated, internationally-acclaimed care provider. There was and is a need in South Australia for long-term care of children and young people under the guardianship of the minister. The SOS village fulfilled a valuable role in meeting this need, especially in relation to keeping sibling groups together.

When SOS withdrew, the government had to step in and take over the village and discharge its obligations at a far greater cost with no demonstrable improvement in outcomes. The committee believes that it is not sufficient for the department simply to dismiss the SOS model of care on the ground that it worked in so-called Third World countries. Whilst it is true that the model operated internationally by SOS-Kinderdorf and its affiliates enjoys great success in many countries where the operational environment is different from that in Australia, that is not to say that, with appropriate adaptations and flexibility, the model was incapable of successful implementation in South Australia.

The reason for the closure of SOS village was not that the model was deficient: the SOS village closed because neither the government nor the department was prepared to support it. The select committee accepts Mr Wayland's claim that the department viewed the concept of a mother as the central figure of the SOS model of care as politically incorrect, simplistic and out of date. In our view, the disdain displayed by some in the department towards the SOS nomenclature illustrates Mr Wayland's point that the SOS model was not valued by Families SA.

The committee concluded that the department was never fully committed to allowing SOS to follow the model of care and style of operation which it had developed and used internationally. This was evidenced by the fact that the department continued to place children suffering from severe behavioural problems with SOS. This did lead to frequent short-term placements, and the department well knew that the village was not intended for seriously dysfunctional and physically violent children. I think it is fair to say also (as the committee notes) that Mr Ellis Wayland is a very dynamic, assertive and forceful character. He showed a great level of commitment to providing a service provided worldwide for children in need of care.

He admitted, and there is no doubt, that he had no prior professional experience in the field of child protection in the care sector. He is actually a retired finance executive and a highly decorated and respected member of the Army Reserve with widespread administrative experience, but he had no professional experience—nor did he ever profess to have—in child protection. There is no doubt that he was frustrated by what he saw as bureaucratic obstruction and indifference, as well as what he considered to be (and so did the committee) trade union bloody-mindedness.

Perhaps if Mr Wayland had been more diplomatic, the SOS village might have struggled on. However, it could never have survived for long in the face of the demands of the Australian Services Union and the entrenched attitudes and inflexibilities of the department and the government. The committee made recommendations in relation to the approach the department ought to adopt if future situations such as this arise.

This is an unhappy chapter in the history of Families SA in this state. We hope that lessons will be learnt but, based on much of the evidence received from the department in the committee, one would have to say there are considerable doubts as to whether the department does have the flexibility and the commitment to embrace new, different and fresh ideas in meeting its considerable responsibilities.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.V. Finnigan.

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