Families SA

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:24): With the leave of the council I move:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established into statutory child protection and care in South Australia, including a review of Families SA management of foster care with particular reference to—

(a) how foster carers are recruited, managed and supported; and

(b) the provision of information and support to foster parents regarding the history and needs of a foster child; and

(c) any other relevant matters.

2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

Members will be aware of recent commentary and coverage in tragic cases and major concerns about treatment of foster carers by Families SA. My colleague, the Hon. Dennis Hood, via a Channel 9 news report has also raised concern about working with children and the checks around that. Family First went to the election with a policy to have a standing committee. The next best we can achieve is a select committee. Our preference would have been a standing committee, like the Budget and Finance Committee, but if that is not to be then we believe this select committee needs to be approved.

The terms of reference are naturally broad. The intent, as the next motion will discuss, will be for referral of specific issues in addition to the broader work of the committee. I hope that the government does not just come out and say it is going to boycott this select committee if it gets up, as they did with the last select committee. I thought that that was very unfortunate because this should be above party politics. The number one thing that any government, any parliament and any decent person should do is ensure the protection, wellbeing and welfare of our children.

In 2008-09 the government chose to boycott, that is, not put any Labor members on the last Families SA select committee. I was very disappointed with that. In fact, I say that had some of those recommendations been adopted by the government and implemented by Families SA, then we would have a situation now where possibly some children would have been much safer than they are at the moment and perhaps some of the tragedies that we have seen may not have even occurred.

Putting that to one side, I asked to take a delegation to minister Rankine. To be fair to the minister, she said, 'I would like to meet with you first before I see a delegation.' As a former minister, I can understand that, so I agreed to meet with the minister. When I got there I had the minister, the minister's chief of staff, the minister's adviser, the chief executive officer of DECD and the executive director of child protection within that portfolio area. We had a good discussion and out of that there came an agreement, as I understood it, which said that I would be able to pick three of the dozens of concerns that I have had raised to me by constituents across this state—three files—and with the authority of those families be able to sit down with that executive officer and look at those files.

A meeting was organised not long after that. When I attended that meeting, or that officer came to my office here in parliament, that officer advised that I would not be able to look at the whole file. That left me guarded, I would say. Notwithstanding that, the officer did say that they would allow me to have copies of some parts of that file that were pertinent to whether or not I believed we needed to move a committee or whether or not, as a cross-section of constituent complaints, I could see that the government were getting on top of these problems.

I waited 2½ weeks and I received no documentation from Families SA. That was the final straw for me, because I believe that in the last select committee Families SA treated the parliament with contempt, and if this committee gets up that must not happen again. I did not have the confidence after that to wait any longer and I owed something to the many constituents who were making complaints. It is to ensure the protection and best practice and resourcing within our capacity to protect our children of South Australia that I move this select committee.

I want to say that there are serious and complicated issues regarding child care, foster care and child protection generally. I acknowledge that it is a very difficult area, but consider that in the 12 years that this government has been in office there has been the Layton report (which collected dust for a long period of time and I understand still has not been entirely enacted upon) and there has been the Mullighan report—and there are still issues around the Mullighan report, as good as that report was, that need to be addressed.

There was the Debelle inquiry and a parliamentary select inquiry, and now we are proposing another one because the government has not been able satisfactorily to manage this very important area. I know there are a lot of dedicated people in the department; notwithstanding that, whether it is resourcing, the number of cases, policy and procedure, whether it is culture, whether it is training and development, whatever it is, we really need to get to the bottom of it and get the government to move proactively in crossing the t's and dotting the i's of giving absolute protection to our children.

The taxpayers of this state demand that, and the dedicated foster carers, who I think at times have been treated with absolute blatant disregard of their wellbeing and commitment to foster children, need the chance to have a voice and a say that is transparent, open and not manipulated by the government of the day.

I know that it will be a lot of work but it is an important committee, and with those words I ask honourable members to favourably support this when we take it to a vote.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M.A. Lensink.