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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-22 Daily Xml
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Residential Care Facilities, CCTV

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:02): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Human Services a question about CCTVs in state-operated residential care facilities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Earlier this month, there were some shocking images of bruising to the body of a man with intellectual disability, Daniel Forbes—bruises that his parents say were caused while their son was living in residential care. Daniel's mother, Karen, gave evidence about her son's care at the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability when it was held in Adelaide. She told the commission that, in February 2019, Daniel, now aged 40, was found with large bruises so severe that he underwent a hospital scan to check for internal bleeding. As a result, Daniel is now back in the family home, for safety reasons.

Police investigated the matter but were not able to determine what happened to Daniel, who has limited speech and was not able to give a statement. The family was also told that the department would investigate, but on several occasions the Department of Human Services said that it could not determine what had happened. Mrs Rogers believes that families of people living in state-operated residential care facilities should be allowed to install security cameras in their relatives' bedrooms. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why aren't families allowed to install CCTV in the bedrooms of relatives in state-operated residential care facilities, at their own expense, to improve the security of their loved ones, particularly in facilities currently under the government's trial?

2. Why does the state government's current trial, which involves CCTV cameras in only two southern suburbs supported accommodation homes, only involve cameras in common areas?

3. Does the minister believe there is a place for CCTV in the bedrooms of people in residential care, even as an opt-in option?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:04): I thank the honourable member for his question. In relation to the CCTV pilot project, that is something that the Department of Human Services, as part of its many reforms to its own accommodation services, has undertaken and this particular initiative we wanted to do on a trial basis.

I think it needs to be recounted, it needs to be pointed out, that people with disability are as diverse as anybody else in the community and their wishes and needs need to be respected and upheld. On that basis, this particular pilot project we wanted to undertake with the full consent of the residents of our accommodation facilities in consultation with their families. So it is a trial. It supports 10 people living with a disability and it is being investigated to examine its effectiveness as an additional safeguard measure, while maintaining the privacy and dignity of residents in their own home.

The location of the pilot was something that was at the behest of the families and the guardians at those particular locations. As the honourable member has identified, we have indeed installed it in the common areas of both of two homes, with no footage recorded in bathrooms or bedrooms. It's a static recorded video and footage can be accessed in line with the department's procedures and policies.

We wanted to make sure that we actually have the consent of all families and guardians. When you have congregate living—more than one person living at the site—it is important that everybody agrees and, rather than it being something that the department made a decision about and imposed on them, we consulted with them. We believe that this particular pilot is something those residents and their guardians and families wanted in the format that they wanted it. Effectively, the short answer is: we asked them what they wanted and that's what we are delivering.

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