Page 1815 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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First, this is not a request to re-litigate this case. The mother involved in this matter, I have been told, has no interest in that at all. Secondly, and I want this to be very clear, this is not a finger-pointing exercise. In fact, it must not be a finger-pointing exercise, especially in relation to the good women and men who do very difficult jobs every day working in this area. Most people would not wish to shoulder the responsibility of being a front-line caseworker in such a complex area as child protection. I honour those who do and publicly thank them for their service.
So what is the point? As another senior legal practitioner pointed out only a couple of days ago, it is easy to say that a system is working if one only looks at the system. It takes looking at individual cases to see where the system may not be working so well. If, as many have worried, this case is evidence that something in our system went wrong then we need to know what that is so that the system can be fixed. Consequently, in this motion I am recommending an analysis of this case specifically as an exercise to identify any systemic issues that we need to be aware of.
We need to do this for the sake of everyone involved. I understand that the mother at the centre of this case desires this analysis of her experiences specifically for that reason and so that, going forward, others can potentially be spared some of the difficulties that she has been through. We need to do this for the workers as well. They have incredibly difficult jobs in which they are daily faced with incredibly complex decisions. A healthy system will recognise this fact and be designed in such a way as to support and protect the people on the front lines. Any systemic failures hurt everyone involved.
This specific case is unavoidably entangled with the issue of information sharing and transparency specifically because those who feel most deeply that something has gone wrong understand that they cannot raise these matters anywhere without being compelled as a consequence of the privacy provisions in the Children and Young People Act. We need to have rigorous privacy provisions. Children need to be protected; families need to be protected. Those who report possible abuse or neglect need to be protected.
I do not think any member of this Assembly would disagree with any of these points. But concerns have been raised, and specifically in relation to this case, that our privacy provisions go too far, that they have, in essence, become secrecy provisions that make it difficult for reasonable and correct actions to be taken in cases where things may, indeed, be going wrong.
I note here that the minister has assured me she is likewise invested in reviewing the act in relation to providing the maximum transparency and accountability so as to restore and maintain community confidence in the territory’s care and protection system. I am grateful to have her support and the support of Ms Le Couteur on this matter.
Madam Assistant Speaker, I am calling upon the Assembly to refer these two related matters to the Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services for analysis and inquiry. I acknowledge here that the minister has some reservations about
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