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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-21 Daily Xml
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CHILDREN'S PROTECTION (GRANDPARENTS AND FAMILY CARE) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:19): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Children's Protection Act 1993. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:20): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I am pleased to move this bill to put families first in foster care considerations in the child welfare system. The motivation for this bill is not only the principle but also the constituents who have come to Family First over the last eight years having found themselves discriminated against in preference to foster-carers.

Family First has a huge amount of respect for foster-carers, and this bill is by no means an attack upon them; some of them are members and supporters of our party. People who step into foster care do so out of compassion and generosity, and at great personal cost to their own families, and they can be numbered amongst the unsung heroes of our state.

However, with the growing number of children, sadly, finding their way into the guardianship of the minister, and reports of children being kept in motel rooms or centres without a family atmosphere, it is our view that the logical solution is for Families SA to be told by the primary governing policy document (that is, the legislation of the parliament) that they have to drop their ideological differences with or biases against grandparents of foster-children and place them in their care when there are not strong grounds against doing so.

The bill is subtitled 'Grandparents and family care' because the focus is principally on grandparents but, as legislators, we acknowledge there are other perfectly capable family care providers, be they aunts, uncles or even older siblings. In Aboriginal culture there might be appropriate kinship arrangements.

This bill is about raising the priority of exploring these options so that the department is required to show it has considered those options and has solid documented grounds for declining such a placement when it does so. In addition, a family carer who wants care of a child is given standing to participate in the court proceedings. We foresee that the Youth Court will be grateful in many instances to see a care placement available with competent family carers, hearing from them firsthand, rather than relying on the testimony of the department and the parents of the children concerned.

Family First believes this legislation is important because the decision to allocate a placement in family care or foster care is so critical in the early days of intervention. Just as in family law cases, the situation that exists immediately after the moment of upheaval for the children is usually the situation that is allowed to continue as the status quo for the foreseeable future. For instance, if children are removed from their parents, say, in an emergency situation and placed with a foster carer, a bond often develops between carer and child after a traumatic situation, and then the status quo is very difficult to change. The status quo is hard to change in the Youth Court or with the department because experts attest that it is no longer in the best interests of the child for that arrangement to change.

Consequently, Family First wants to see the grandparent or family carer given every possibility through an initial investigation to take that first care of children from their own family. We can see a considerable benefit for the foster care system from this reform by its strengthening the focus on family placement at the earliest possible opportunity. The vital foster care resource I referred to earlier will be available to the kids who really need it the most, that is, those who do not have a viable extended family to love and care for them.

It is poor policy, we believe, for a child to be placed with and then, via the status quo, stay with one of that scarce pool of foster carers when a perfectly viable family care placement exists. Even in recent times, we have had grandparents, in particular, contact us requesting intervention with Families SA to support those grandchildren. Those people have the dedication, they certainly have the loving home environment and often they are well aware of the circumstances and the reasons why these children have been placed in foster care, far more than foster-carers who are not part of the family, and they want to be able to continue the family relationship with that grandchild or grandchildren.

When you look at data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare from 2006, it is interesting to note that we are not doing very well in this state compared with some other states in kinship care. In fact, it shows that 47.1 per cent of kinship care is the target that New South Wales is achieving. In South Australia, we are sitting at 38 per cent. So, not many more than a third of the children placed under the guardianship of the minister or, through Families SA, in foster care have an opportunity to go into foster care with their grandparents or some other close and loving relatives.

Recently, the argument put by Families SA to one of my constituents was that the department did not want to place the child in the care of the grandparents because, whilst the woman was the grandmother of the child, she had remarried and the department said it did not recognise her loving new husband as fit and proper to look after the child. I think it is just slackness on the part of the department, which felt comfortable because it had placed the children in a foster care environment and it would be difficult for the department to put in the effort to analyse and take a new direction so the grandparents could have had that opportunity. From my point of view, if a grandparent remarries and the husband or wife of that grandparent wants to love, embrace and look after that child, that is an environment Families SA should be looking at.

I will finish by making one point to highlight another element that has come up through our constituents' interaction with the department; that is, that some of our constituents (and I am sure it is the same for our colleagues in both this chamber and the other place) feel they are discriminated against because of their personal situation. A grandparent, for instance, may have a condition, such as a disability, that the department uses as an excuse not to place children with them when, with assistance from the department or, indeed, another agency of government, that grandparent could provide that care and leave non-family foster-carers available to provide for other children in need, because there is certainly no shortage of children in need. We are hearing more and more of children under the guardianship of the minister being placed in communal housing, with carers who come in and out, which, in my opinion, is not satisfactory.

Our bill amends the Children's Protection Act to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against in the selection of care placement providers. I look forward to and encourage any debate on this bill from honourable members. I believe it is time we put some pressure on Families SA; no-one else seems to be doing it. The parliament can do it. We have tried before with select committees and the like, and we acknowledge the efforts of many honourable members, such as the Hon. Ann Bressington in this place. It seems that, unless we continue to put pressure on Families SA—and, in fact, unless we amend the law, so that Families SA has no choice but to abide by the law of the parliament and the democratic process—we will continue to have mid-management and above, particularly, making decisions that are not in the best interests of families and particularly those children who need that love, care and attention. I commend the bill to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.W. Ridgway.

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