Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-03 Daily Xml

Contents

Safeguarding Taskforce

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): Supplementary arising from the original answer given that referred to the terms of reference: who drafted the draft terms of reference? Was it the task force, or was it your office, or was it somewhere else in government?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:31): I am really pleased that the Labor opposition is so obsessed with this particular process of how they came into being, because it was the chair—the chair at the time, who then became the co-chair—who drafted the initial terms of reference, and the ones that we will provide publicly this afternoon are not that much different.

It has been a strange focus on this particular set of words, which are very broad, and, as I said yesterday, I have taken the view that the task force should have latitude so they may well identify other issues that they think are important. As I talked about yesterday, there is a whole web of issues relating to safeguarding. If the Labor opposition would spend two minutes listening to people in the sector, they would understand that there are a whole range of ways that we can improve safeguarding for people with disabilities, particularly the ones who are the most vulnerable, who might have profound disabilities, who might not be verbal, who might have significant physical limitations and particularly those who don't have someone else to advocate for them.

There are layers, and that is why the inclusion agenda is so important, because it is all about human rights for people with disabilities—that they have the same rights and expectations as every other person in our society. Those are things that I have certainly heard. Those are the messages from the speakers at the vigil on Saturday. Those are the messages that I hear loud and clear from correspondents and from concerned South Australians.