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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-16 Daily Xml
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Ministerial Statement

Safeguarding Taskforce Interim Report

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:29): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The death of Ann Marie Smith on 6 April 2020 has shocked and saddened us all. The circumstances of her death, as reported by SAPOL, indicated serious gaps in the safeguarding system that is currently in place for people with disabilities and their families. These safeguards are meant to protect our most vulnerable but failed in this instance. Identifying these safeguarding gaps has been a top priority for this government over the last four weeks. Yesterday, I was provided with an interim report from the Safeguarding Taskforce outlining urgent high-level safeguarding issues that both the state and federal governments need to consider and address.

Over the next seven weeks, the task force will be consulting more widely with people with disability and key stakeholders to finalise their report and the recommendations therein. Releasing the interim report now allows us to move quickly and identify the critical conversations we need to be having prior to the final report on 31 July. Before I provide more details about the interim recommendations, I would like to again emphasise the importance of people living with disability being central to this process. We are grateful to the members of the task force who have a disability, or are a parent of a child with a disability, for sharing their experience and knowledge to close these gaps.

The interim report has outlined 12 key safeguarding gaps and five associated recommendations. I am pleased to say that the government is providing in-principle support for all five recommendations. Together, these recommendations will provide additional layers of safeguarding for people with disability in South Australia. While all recommendations will require further detail, preliminary work to address them has already begun.

Given the majority of gaps fall within the federal government's responsibility, I have already communicated with minister Stuart Robert, the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the commissioner of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Graeme Head, and the Chief Executive of the NDIA, Martin Hoffman, to push for urgent change in these areas.

In summary, these gaps include:

that there is no requirement for providers of personal support to have at least two support workers for an individual (not necessarily at the same time);

that there is no specific requirement for workers in a participant's home to have regular supervision;

support coordination can be provided by the same agency that provides other core services for the individual, creating a conflict of interest;

relevant information on an individual worker that might affect their suitability to work with people with disabilities not being shared with the screening unit in DHS quickly and fully;

vulnerable participants not being routinely identified and assigned ongoing support coordination in their NDIS plan;

NDIS plans not being inclusive of strategies to minimise participant risk, such as coordination of health care;

lack of clarity regarding the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission's handling of reports of matters of concern;

participants not being linked to community so they can participate in community activity;

no priority for vulnerable participants identified by the NDIA when carrying out the community connection role; and

risk factors associated with the use of unregistered providers of personal support, particularly for vulnerable participants.

I will also be discussing these gaps and their associated recommendations with other state ministers to harness their support in driving reform in these areas. As many states and territories are yet to fully transition to the NDIS, I am sure they will be interested in ensuring these safeguards are in place for their citizens.

I would also like to outline the changes that are within South Australia's powers to address. These include taking measures to expand the role of the Adult Safeguarding Unit so that its scope includes vulnerable adults of any age, and addressing the need for vulnerable NDIS participants to have regular health checks.

I am pleased to see that the task force has given some consideration to the opposition's Community Visitor Scheme bill, emphasising the need to apply a considered rather than rushed approach given that 'significant parts of the private member's bill would likely be inoperable'. We all agree that the CVS is a valued scheme, which is why the Marshall Liberal government continued to fund and expand it after Labor cashed it out to the NDIS; however, any revised scheme needs to be well designed and carefully consider legal responsibilities between the state and the commonwealth.

I look forward to seeing how the task force can further explore how the Community Visitor Scheme can be applied going forward to ensure the rights of people with disability are enabled and not unintentionally inhibited. I would like to thank the task force members for their haste in bringing the interim report together and providing a pathway forward.

I would also like to thank members of the public who have written to the government and provided submissions to the task force since learning of Ann Marie's death to express their sadness and provide recommendations on how to improve the system.

Closing safeguarding gaps for people with disability will take a collective effort. As the interim report highlights, the best safeguard for any vulnerable individual is to have many people in their lives, preferably people who love and look out for them, who make sure the person is not left to their own devices when things go wrong. I can assure all South Australians that the Marshall government is committed to pushing for reform at all levels until systemic weaknesses and failures are addressed and we have the highest level of quality assurance and safeguards possible for people with a disability. I now seek leave to table the Safeguarding Taskforce Interim Report.

Leave granted.

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