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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-02 Daily Xml
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Training Centre Visitor

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (15:14): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing questions to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs regarding a Training Centre Visitor's report.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: In relation to the proportion of Aboriginal young people dual-involved with both child protection and youth justice, the data provided in Ms Reid's report states that in the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 the proportion of dual-involved children and young people was 43.3 per cent of the total, but in 2022-23 that has become 57.7 per cent. My questions for the minister are:

1. Has he read the Training Centre Visitor's report?

2. Has he met with the Training Centre Visitor in relation to these issues?

3. To what does he attribute these changes?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:15): I thank the honourable member for her question. Of course, issues with the Kurlana Tapa training centre are the direct portfolio responsibility of the Minister for Human Services, but it is something that the Minister for Human Services and I discuss on a regular basis. Certainly, I have talked to the Minister for Human Services about a range of issues just this week and particularly, in recent weeks, about issues to which the honourable member refers. I have regular meetings with officials, those who have oversight of systems, to talk about their views on what can be done and what can be improved.

As the honourable member knows—having firsthand experience of having held the portfolio responsibilities in this area—it is disturbing, the correlation we see between those who are involved in the child protection system and those who find their way into the criminal justice system. That is certainly one reason why we are still doing such in-depth work about the minimum age of criminal responsibility as well because, again, those intersections run deep, and we need to look at what we can do to see if there are better ways to handle these sorts of issues.

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