Page 2576 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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Mr Seselja: She clearly stated it.
Mr Hanson: On the point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I was making my point of order, Katy Gallagher was clearly interjecting, saying, “You did, you did, you did,” or words to that effect. I am at a loss to see how my one interjection warrants a warning, whereas the Chief Minister can interject while you are actually in conversation with me and that does not warrant a warning. It seems remarkably inconsistent.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: I asked all the members of the opposition and crossbenchers to hear the minister in silence and I ask that you continue to do that. Ms Gallagher.
MS GALLAGHER: I turn to Anita Phillips’s report, Who is looking out for the territory’s children? When I read the report on Thursday night I was drawn to the fact that the comments she made in her report showed a significant improvement in the system that I faced in 2004 when the Vardon report was commissioned.
I think any drawing of the line that nothing has changed since 2004 is simply incorrect or shows a lack of understanding or perhaps a lack of awareness about the care and protection system here. For one, we have about three times as many care and protection workers that are adequately paid, that are located in appropriate facilities.
We have improved record management systems. We have improved numbers of foster carers and out-of-home care alternatives. We have worked very closely with the community sector to build those relationships. This is no apology for the areas of failure which need to be improved, but I would be very surprised if any care and protection system in the country or, indeed, the world would have a report done into them where failures on some level were not found or were not identified.
That simply acknowledges the nature of the business that child protection is. It is crisis management because there are crises. The real crisis here, the real scandal here, is that we have twice as many children coming into the care of the territory than we have had in recent years, that families are breaking down, that parents are neglecting their children and the government is having to respond.
That is at the heart of a community’s response to its children. That is the failure. The care and protection system then needs to respond and needs to manage those situations as they arise. Even based on a report where a number of failures were identified and good practice needs to be improved, to a large extent there were signs of good practice and signs of reform underway.
This is the hardest area of government service delivery. It is without a doubt when you read the files of these children, understand that the lives that they lead are incredibly hard and understand the role of the care and protection workers going in there and making decisions.
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