Hansard

Child protection

Motion

Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (10:13 am) without notice: I move:

That this house:

(1) recognises that this is National Child Protection Week and that every child in every community needs a fair go;

(2) acknowledges that this year's theme is Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation To Action; and

(3) calls on the Cook Labor government to:

(a) abandon its failed policy amalgamating child protection into the mega-Department of Communities;

(b) implement the opposition's policy enabling children to raise concerns about their care with the independent Commissioner for Children and Young People;

(c) expedite addressing recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that are now a decade old;

(d) prioritise a long-term placement for the 175 carers approved for that purpose who have not had a child placed with them for more than a year;

(e) start recording and reporting on when a child is placed in emergency care on consecutive occasions;

(f) cease the practice of children sleeping on the floor of a district office;

(g) review the practice of children going home with a caseworker;

(h) transparently report on the funding provided to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations (ACCOs), the number of children being supported by ACCOs and the number of new carers recruited by ACCOs;

(i) institute a special policy for any child in care who is repeatedly reported as missing; and

(j) verify whether a child has been a victim of crime, every time they are returned to care after having gone missing.

It is indeed National Child Protection Week and the theme this year is "Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation To Action". In my capacity as shadow Minister for Child Protection, it is my pleasure to move this motion this morning. I note that I have precious little time to get through the 10 points that are listed in the motion here. The purpose of the motion is to provide a non-exhaustive list of actions that the government can take on child protection so that rather than us talking about it, we can see some action in the child protection space.

I begin with the first action item, which calls on the government to abandon its failed policy amalgamating child protection into the mega-Department of Communities. That could be a 20-minute speech in and of itself. The point to members is this: a report was produced by Prudence Ford in January 2007; it was a review into the then Department for Community Development. Why was this report done in 2007? It was done because of critical findings by the State Coroner into what was then known as the Department for Community Development. In other words, there was this mega-department back in 2007, and the coroner had made some critical findings on that particular mega-department in the previous year. Why? It was because, tragically, an 11-month-old boy—Wade Scale was his name—drowned in a bath with adult medication in his body. The coroner made damning findings about the mega-Department for Community Development. The Carpenter government, if I remember correctly, was in power at the time. To its credit, it accepted the finding in Prudence Ford's report, which was that we needed to have a standalone Department for Child Protection. Members will remember that the then Premier, Mr Carpenter, called a snap election in 2008. Mr Barnett then became the Premier. What did he do? He made sure that there was a standalone Department for Child Protection—and there was for the duration of the Barnett government for eight and a half years. Mr McGowan then became the Premier in 2017 and what did he do? He amalgamated the Department for Child Protection into this mega-Department of Communities, doing the precise opposite of what had been suggested in the Prudence Ford report. I do not have further time to elaborate on that, but it is a significant issue and it is the first thing that we call on the Cook Labor government to do—to abandon this failed policy of amalgamating child protection into the mega-Department of Communities.

The second thing that we are calling on the government to do is to implement the opposition's long-held policy of enabling children to raise concerns about their care with the independent Commissioner for Children and Young People. Again, President, a 20-minute speech could be given on this item, but we do not have the luxury of that this morning. Members may or may not be aware that there is an avenue for children in care to make complaints, and there is an advocate. The advocate is housed in the Department of Communities. It is not an independent advocate. We have said repeatedly year after year that in our view the best place for those individual complaints to be assessed is with the Commissioner for Children and Young People. There will be two members of this place who serve on the standing committee that oversees the Commissioner for Children and Young People, and, at the very least, those two members, if not others, will be aware that the Commissioner for Children and Young People is prohibited under her legislation from looking at individual complaints and can only look at systemic matters. Someone needs to be looking at individual complaints from children in the care of the state the moment those complaints are made in-house within the department, and we say that they should be assessed genuinely independently of the department. That is something that the government could implement quickly.

The third thing that we are calling for is for the government to expedite addressing recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that are now a decade old. Once again, a 20-minute speech could be given on this. There is not the time for that. I note that only in the last couple of weeks the Minister for Child Protection issued a media release entitled "Have your say on reforms to strengthen Working with Children checks". I encourage members to be familiar with that media release. In summary, the minister said that the government is now embarking on phase 2 of its reforms on working with children checks. The statement says that this is a result of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse from 2015. Here we are, 10 years later, now embarking on phase 2. I am calling on the government today to expedite this work, and not for it to continue to languish 10 years later.

The fourth thing we are asking the government to consider today, in terms of an action that it could complete, is to prioritise long-term placements for the 175 carers who are approved for that purpose and who, inexplicably, at this point in time know did not have a child placed with them for a single day in the last financial year. Once again, this would be the subject of a 20-minute speech if time permitted. Members who were here during the budget estimates session on child protection would be well aware that the first question I asked in that session as shadow Minister for Child Protection was: How many children in the care of the state are currently waiting for a long-term placement? It was a simple question. For five minutes, the minister representing and the senior advisers who were here were incapable of providing that information. Ultimately, the matter was taken on notice. The child protection estimates hearing was at least two weeks ago. Can someone in government in a position to answer today let us know? They have had two weeks to get to the bottom of this.

For context, more than 5,200 children are in the care of the state. That is 5,200 children whose personal circumstances at home are so poor and they are so at-risk that the state has intervened, taking them from their ordinary family and looking after them in state care in some form. How many of those 5,200 are waiting for a long-term placement? How many? Are there any? Of course there must be some, so how many are there? Why do we want to know this, President? It is because we know that 175 carers have been expressly approved by this government for long-term care and they did not have a child placed in their care for the whole of the last financial year—not for a single day. We know this from answers that were given prior to estimates. Specifically, we were told in answer 6A, prior to the estimates hearings, that 417 carer households were approved for long-term placements and had a child in their care for between one and 364 days in the last financial year, but 175, also approved for long-term placements, did not care for a child during this time. I am not suggesting for a moment that all 175 should have had a child in their care. There may well be justifiable reasons as to why a person who has been approved for long-term care did not have a child for that particular year, but 175 of them? A total of 417 carers had children with them and 175 did not. It seems to suggest, on the basis of these figures, that there is a problem. At the very least, it requires an explanation from the government, and yet none has been provided. I hope that some answers might start to generate today.

I move to the fifth point. We are asking the government to start recording and reporting on when a child is placed in emergency care on consecutive occasions. It was incredible during the budget estimates session to ask about this issue and to be told that no data is being collected. I quote now specifically from the session on 26 August 2025 when I asked the minister:

Has any child had an emergency placement for the entirety of the 2024–25 financial year …

For some context here, members, I am talking about emergency placement. I am not talking about long-term placement—I just referred to that—and I am not talking about short-term placement; I am talking about emergency placement. I asked:

Has any child had an emergency placement for the entirety of the 2024–25 financial year—just moved from one emergency placement to another for a whole year?

The minister representing said:

I might ask Mrs Samuels to provide some comment about what an emergency placement is and whether we have that data.

I said:

No, I do not want to know what an emergency placement is. I know what an emergency placement is. I want to know whether any child has been in emergency placements for the entirety of 2024–25.

Mrs Melanie Samuels responded:

We do not collect that data in that way so, no, I could not answer that question.

How can it be, members, that after a decision was made by the government to amalgamate child protection into this mega-Department of Communities, it does not know whether children are being kept in consecutive emergency placements? If that is the case and if what was said in the estimates session is true and no correction needs to be made and that is not happening at the moment, can we start doing that now? Can we have the director general issue a directive that, from next week, if consecutive emergency placements are made, that information is recorded? Is that asking too much? We would like to see a shift from conversation to action, and this is but the fifth of the 10 examples that I would like to provide today.

The sixth example is we are asking the government to cease the practise of children sleeping on the floor of a district office. I asked about this during the budget estimates session. I specifically asked on 26 August this year:

Is the director general aware of any child sleeping on the floor at a district office in the last financial year?

We never get a simple response to a simple question when it comes to budget estimates. It is almost as though people are trained to purposely waste as much time as they can during budget estimates in responding to simple questions. The question was:

Is the director general aware of any child sleeping on the floor at a district office in the last financial year?

Eventually, part of the response was:

I am aware of one instance where there has been a child for a brief period of time that has spent a portion of time in an office, but I would not say that was overnight, before they were able to be found accommodation.

What does that mean? I go back to the question:

Is the director general aware of any child sleeping on the floor at a district office in the last financial year?

If he is not, he needs to find out about it, because multiple workers have drawn this to my attention. Something is not right. Now, either the workers are lying when they are coming to me and saying that this is something that goes on, and that would be a problem, or the more likely explanation is that this is going on and the director general is unaware of it. Later in that particular session, he said, to his credit:

I would expect to be notified if there was an instance where a child was in that situation by practice.

I agree with him entirely. He should be notified. Is it happening? We are asking for that practice to stop, and it should stop today.

The seventh item that I bring to the attention of members of this house is that we are calling for a review of the practice of children going home with a caseworker. This is no idle suggestion. The government acknowledged in the budget estimates hearings that this is happening regularly. In fairness to Hon Jackie Jarvis, she is the representative minister on this matter—she is not the Minister for Child Protection, but I specifically asked her about this during budget estimates on 26 August. I asked about the number of instances when a caseworker has had to take a child home. In other words, the department has not been able to find another place for the child at risk so they have had to go home with a caseworker. Is this practice going on? We know it is going on because Hon Jackie Jarvis said in response to the question that the need for an employee to undertake emergency care for a child has remained consistent over the three years examined—66 times in 2022–23, 66 times in 2023–24 and 69 times in 2024–25. On 23 of those occasions, the child did not require overnight care. The translation of that is that in the majority of cases, they had to have overnight care. We should be concerned about that now. Let us be clear. Unlike my previous point, which called on the government to cease the practise of children sleeping in district offices, we are simply asking for a review of this practice. I have purposely asked for a review rather than the cessation of this activity because I can foresee scenarios in which, perhaps quite genuinely, there is literally no other option but for the caseworker to take the child home. If we have data saying that this is happening consistently—more than once a week, every week of the year—it is time for this to be reviewed. That review could be implemented tomorrow if the government wanted to.

I move quickly to the eighth point. We are calling for transparent reporting of the funding provided to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations, the number of children being supported by Aboriginal community–controlled organisations and the number of new carers recruited by Aboriginal community–controlled organisations. There is insufficient time to deal comprehensively with this point today, but I note that in questions prior to the budget estimates hearing, I asked about the cost of implementing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle. The response was that a specific cost is not attributable to implementation of the principle, given integration of the principle across all aspects of the child protection system et cetera. Later, in response to a question that I had asked about how much funding is being provided to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations to assist with this principle, the answer was to refer to response B, which was the response that I just read. In other words, we cannot seem to get details from the government about specific costs. I followed this up during budget estimates on 26 August, when I asked:

Minister, do we have an indication as to how much of the $914 million of the budget is allocated to ACCOs?

Hon Jackie Jarvis ultimately said:

Again, honourable member, we do not have the budget broken down by organisation, so we would need to go through the organisations and differentiate ACCOs versus other organisations.

Please do so, minister. Please make sure that the department and the Minister for Child Protection do so. I believe the question was taken as a supplementary in budget estimates. There is no good reason that funding provided to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations cannot be transparently reported. There is no reason that the number of children who are being supported by Aboriginal community–controlled organisations cannot be transparently reported. There is no reason that the number of new carers recruited by Aboriginal community–controlled organisations cannot be provided, because, presumably, this bucket of money is being provided to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations to do something. It is either to recruit carers or to look after children, so let us find out how much is actually being spent and to what ultimate end.

The ninth point is that we are asking the government to institute a special policy for any child in care who is repeatedly reported as missing. Does this really require explanation? If a child goes missing in care—remember, there are approximately 5,200 children in the care of the state—the government, like any parent who would be stressed if their child went missing, should be taking all measures necessary to find that child. If that child is repeatedly reported as missing, there should be a special policy to deal with that. I draw to members' attention that I have asked about this. Members will know that I generally ask about this once a week. On 19 August, we were told that since 1 January this year, six children had been reported to the Western Australia Police Force. In other words, six children had gone missing on between two and 13 occasions. In other words, there is one child in the care of the state who has been reported to the police as missing on 13 occasions. Do members think that it might be time to have a special policy to deal with those types of individuals who go missing repeatedly? We are calling on the government to do that.

Last but not least, the tenth item is that we are calling on the government to verify whether a child has been a victim of crime every time they are returned to care after having gone missing. It is bad enough that a child goes missing. Some of those circumstances in which a child goes missing are not the fault of the government or the department. If they go missing repeatedly, the government needs a special policy, which was my earlier point. When they are returned to care, somebody needs to ask them whether they have been a victim of crime during the period that they were missing. I have asked repeatedly about this and, astonishingly, the answer that has consistently come back from government is along the lines that it would be a diversion of resources. In fact, the specific comment that has been provided by the minister in question time is that this diversion is not deemed an appropriate use of frontline resources. Get real, Cook Labor government! If a child goes missing in the care of the state, they are the government's responsibility. If they go missing and they come back into care, it is the government's responsibility to find out whether they were a victim of crime. Do not say to us that it is somehow a diversion of frontline resources. To find out whether these children were a victim of crime is precisely what frontline resources should be used for.

Hon Jackie Jarvis (Deputy Leader of the House) (10:35 am): I, too, want to acknowledge that it is National Child Protection Week. Hon Nick Goiran has provided an action item list, and I would like to respond on behalf of the government by addressing many of those action items that are in train by the Cook Labor government. This child protection system has never been resourced better than under this government. Since 2017, we have increased the funding to the child protection portfolio by almost $360 million. This is, of course, important funding. It supports vulnerable children and young people. There is record investment in the child protection system, including an additional $250 million this financial year to make sure that the system stays strong. We have increased the number of case-carrying frontline protection workers by 40% since 2018–19 to make sure that we have got more support on the ground than ever. We have given historic pay increases and improved conditions for child protection workers across the state. We know this is tough work and that it is hard to recruit people, so from 1 April, we have had that historic pay increase, making child protection workers in WA among the best paid in the country. As of 30 June this year, 81% of children who are referred to intensive family support services remain safely at home with their parents after 12 months and 85% of children whose families were referred to the Aboriginal In-Home Support Service remain safely at home.

Hon Nick Goiran had a concern about the action item list and about how children can raise concerns with the Commissioner for Children and Young People. He said that children should be able to. I am advised that children in care already have the right to raise concerns with the Commissioner for Children and Young People and that information on how to raise concerns is shared with children in care through planning meetings and communications provided in residential care homes. To make a complaint to the Commissioner for Children and Young People, the children can visit the website on which there is a "contact us" page. The commissioner has quite rightly provided a child-focused approach to the complaint processes. We encourage children in care to engage with this as needed. The website has information about the types of complaints young people can make, whether it is about a government department, an agency or an organisation. The website has a child-focused video, which outlines the process for young people considering the complaint process.

Since 2018, we have been committed to implementing the very important royal commission recommendations. The royal commission made 409 recommendations. The state government is responsible for 310 of the recommendations and has proposed a 10-year implementation program. To date, the state government has acquitted 63%, or 195, of these recommendations, and there is a range of things that we have acquitted so far, including formal apologies to victim-survivors of child sexual abuse; the Children and Community Services Amendment Act 2021 expanding mandatory reporting; investment in responses for children displaying harmful sexual behaviours; participation in the national redress scheme; passing legislation to lift the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse civil action; the launch of Safer WA; expanded mandatory reporting of sexual abuse for groups including ministers of religion, school counsellors and psychologists and from 1 May 25, youth justice workers; and phased reforms of the working with children check system. Every committee recommendation we committed to is underway, with the remaining 115 in various stages of delivery. The Department of Communities has acquitted 53 recommendations, with another 45 underway. Of the department's remaining recommendations, 18 rely on work led by the Commonwealth government. Work is in progress to complete the remaining 26 recommendations.

With regard to carers who do not have children currently placed with them, the safe and best interests of the children are, and should always be, paramount. It is the Department of Communities' primary focus to provide long-term arrangements and stability when it can. There will always be circumstances in which foster carers do not currently have children placed with them, such as carer households that are on short breaks or provide only emergency care. Some carer households can be between care arrangements for a variety of reasons, and we work closely with those families. We also work closely on engaging community sector organisations and Aboriginal community–controlled organisations to ensure that they are recorded practices across the whole state.

There are a number of considerations when we look at care arrangements for children. The priority, obviously, is to keep children linked to families, schools and recreational activities that maximise the opportunities for reunification with their family. We want to maintain connection with family, community and culture, particularly for Aboriginal and culturally and linguistically diverse children. We want to be mindful of education and training needs, particularly for young teens who might be attending TAFE. We also want them to have regular contact with family who live nearby. It may not be in the best interests to place children with carers who are outside the metropolitan area or are a long way from where the young child has extended networks.

There is also self-determination, which is important for young people. A young person might refuse to move away from their community, which is understandable. Of course, we need to have consideration for contact arrangements determined by magistrates and make sure that any carer a child is placed with can meet those obligations. We want to be mindful of the impact of travel, particularly for young children and babies. We obviously do not want children missing school regularly to attend contact visits. It is always our first priority to locate care arrangements with families or significant others, and, when that is not possible, long-term arrangements within the district is obviously the preference.

With regard to emergency care arrangements, the Cook government prioritises keeping children safe at home when it is safe to do so, as I said, but we do take responsibility for finding a safe place for vulnerable children. This is, of course, the Department of Communities' highest priority. Our child protection staff go above and beyond. As the honourable member mentioned, I have represented the Minister for Child Protection for several years in this place and get regular briefings ahead of budget estimates and annual report hearings, and I know that those staff do go above and beyond. I am sure that everyone in this house would agree that child protection work is amongst the most difficult there is in the public sector. The department's amazing child safety practitioners take the time to develop an understanding of each child. Each child has an extensive file of records that details their care arrangements, decisions, support and plans. The department maintains extensive records on more than 5,000 children in care. These records track the history of care arrangements for each child. They record what type of care arrangements the child has had. However, as we have said in this place many times, the out-of-home care system is dynamic. The needs of children can change daily for a variety of reasons. Decisions about child care are also made in accordance with legislation requirements, and the best interests of the child are always paramount. To be clear, the department maintains records for every child in care. The nature of these over 5,000 individual records does not provide for easy automated reporting for some aspects. The department's priority is, and always will be, to work with children in care, and we do not want people dragged off the front line to complete data reports.

The circumstances in which children come into care are not mandated by the time of day and, as we know, can occur at any time of the day or night. When a child comes into care, it is a priority to make sure that they feel safe. This can occur in the middle of the night, and often does. We make sure that the child is in a safe place. As I think we covered in estimates, they may be taken to a district office so that the administration processes can be completed to find a suitable placement. The placement may depend on the age of the child, whether siblings are involved, the geographical location and the type of care, and the child will be taken into that care arrangement as soon as possible. As part of that, the government owns 85 properties that are also used for out-of-home care service provision. I should also add that since 2018–19, the government has added 372 frontline child protection workers. As I said, this is a 40% growth. Child protection funding has increased by more than $360 million. We are committed to working across all areas of child protection.

With regard to Aboriginal community–controlled organisations, there has never been a greater level of Aboriginal involvement in the child protection system. We are really keen to make sure that when Aboriginal children and families come into contact with the child protection system, they are assisted with Aboriginal-led solutions. We know that Aboriginal-led approaches empower families and communities, and we recognise the importance of ACCOs. The Department of Communities' ACCO strategy was developed in partnership with the sector. There has been record investment of $154.8 million in early intervention since 2017. This investment in commissioning ACCO-led service provision, and the expansion of the Earlier Intervention and Family Support service model to regional and remote locations, has strengthened efforts to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in child protection.

With regard to missing or unaccounted for children, as of July 2025, there were 5,274 children in out-of-home care, as I mentioned. The overwhelming majority are settled in safe care arrangements—5,274 children. We acknowledge that there are some circumstances in which young people will make their own choices, and they may leave approved care residences and may reside in self-selected living arrangements. The Department of Communities ensures that every child has access to the same supports that would be available to them if they were in approved care. A very small number of children in care—generally, less than 0.1%—leave their care arrangements without telling anyone. When children leave their care arrangements and are not self-selecting a living arrangement, every effort is made by Communities and WA police to contact them. As the honourable member opposite suggested, we need to make sure that all necessary measures are taken, and indeed they are. The Department of Communities and WA police have implemented a memorandum of understanding with corresponding procedures regarding missing children, which includes a risk assessment tool, practice guidelines and processes to better determine the whereabouts of children and young people when their whereabouts are unknown and focus on those children in care who are potentially at serious risk. Every day, child safety practitioners try to contact family and friends when a child is missing. They visit the locations that the young person is known to visit to locate them. Thankfully, usually the young person is found quickly, and, once contact has been made, the caseworker works with them to ensure that they have the right supports.

With regard to children who may be the victims of crime, it is obviously a traumatic experience if a child has been a victim of crime. Disclosures can happen at any time. We also know that children and young people do not disclose immediately. Because disclosures can happen at any time, the Department of Communities ensures that all reported or disclosed allegations of a child in care being a victim of crime are treated as a priority and investigated accordingly, no matter when the information is received. All incidents relating to a child in care are reported to Department of Communities senior leadership and to the police as appropriate. Department of Communities caseworkers actively engage with young people in care to ensure that they have access to the counselling, services and supports that they need for their own safety and wellbeing. Any reports of a crime by a child are taken seriously by Communities and WA police, with all appropriate actions taken.

In the last couple of minutes, I want to outline the support we give to foster and family carers. We acknowledge and recognise the support that foster and family carers provide. Over 77% of children in care live with foster and family carers. It is the predominant care type in the out-of-home care system. In the 2025–26 budget, we reflected the midyear review decision to provide foster and family carers, as well as grandcarers and special custodians, a one-off cost-of-living payment in addition to their usual subsidies and supports. We have also invested significantly in supporting the state's foster and family carers through continuing $17 million in support services, including OurSPACE to provide carers with free specialised therapeutic counselling services; a partnership with Inklings, The Kids Research Institute Australia program, to prioritise infants' development in out-of-home care settings; extending KidSport funding for the biological children of foster and family carers, in addition to KidSport vouchers being available to the children and young people they may be caring for; and the development of a Fostering Connections unit to provide additional support to promote the important role of foster and family carers. We have relaunched the "Become a Foster Carer—Make a difference to a child's life" campaign. I think the Minister for Child Protection, Hon Jessica Stojkovski, has spoken passionately about her family's journey as foster carers. We relaunched the campaign in partnership with Aboriginal community–controlled organisations, community services organisations, businesses and peaks, including the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA—which was the result of a bit of out-of-the-box thinking. It was the Labor government that established the WA Foster and Family Carers Week celebration to acknowledge people's contributions. I am sure members will agree that it was a terrific week of acknowledgement of those people.

President, with that, I will take my seat. As I said, I want to acknowledge that it is National Child Protection Week. Hon Nick Goiran is obviously passionate about this issue, as are workers in the system and, indeed, our government.

Hon Dr Brian Walker (10:50 am): I will take just a few minutes to deal with the motion. I want to give the perspective of someone who has dealt with this issue on the front line as a doctor. It is all very well listening to what the government wants to do, but this is on members on both sides, and I am going to ask that we all agree that governments of whatever persuasion are not at all happy with the state of child care as it is currently. I heard the good words just now, but what are the actual outcomes?

I am going to speak about actual cases that happened to me over some years spanning both Liberal and Labor governments, and members can make up their minds about how things are actually happening on the ground. For example, there was the time we were told to take a child, a breastfed infant, into care because it was drunk from drinking its mother's milk imbued with lots of alcohol. It was for the umpteenth time, I believe. We had this child over the weekend and the parents were not allowed to visit because, of course, of the danger to the child, and the family was not allowed to visit. On the Monday morning, the department of child protection decided that, no, it was culturally appropriate to give the child back to the drunk mother and father because it was the best place for this child to be. That was some decade and more ago and I wonder what happened to that young girl.

Another one that occurred to me involved the abuse of a single mother. She did actually have drug problems but was now completely fine. As a single mother of a young daughter, she had to find a way of keeping body and soul together by working, so she got a job in the local hostelry. While she was there, she had a friend, a good young woman, looking after and caring for the child. Did DCP accept that? No, it did not. It began to attack the mother, accusing her of actually failing to look after the child because it was not her but someone else, a trusted adult, looking after the child. She was threatened with having the child removed from her permanent care because she was earning money to keep body and soul of mother and child together. She was available, amenable to being spoken to and was not difficult in any way. It was going for low-hanging fruit to put pressure on this young woman. It was a tragedy.

At the same time, the department of child protection was informed by me of a young girl in a local school who was being sexually threatened by another pupil, a young boy, in the same class. The threats were of a sexual nature and were being escalated to a point at which we could assume that this young girl was at risk of being raped. It is my duty to give a mandatory report, and I did that. DCP called up and asked for the details of the girl. I said, "Well, the girl's fine. She's okay, but she's being assaulted on a daily basis at the school. It's the young boy I'd like you to take care of." DCP said no to that and wanted the details of the girl. The boy was the one who was offending and the one who was going to be committing the rape, but DCP wanted the details of the girl because it was about the girl and it wanted to look after the girl. The girl was fine with her parents and it was when she was at school that the rape may likely occur. I asked DCP what it would take for it to take action. The answer was—members are not going to believe this—that once the girl had been raped and police had been involved, then DCP would get involved with the boy. I find that unacceptable. I actually reported it to DCP, and the director of DCP found it acceptable; it was within the parameters. I believe the minister was involved. I will not mention names, but that is unacceptable.

More recently, we had a child of drug abusing parents who was constantly at risk of being assaulted. The child was being left alone, unattended at home while the parents were out either searching for drugs, stealing money for drugs or being affected by drugs. The child was cared for by loving, caring grandparents who gave the child everything—all the support, all the schooling, all the care—they wanted. Then DCP decided it was going to give the child back to the biological parents because that was the right place for the child to be. The parents were still using drugs, abusing drugs and ending up violent and not caring for the child. The grandparents had access and they could see the child going downhill, but nothing they could do would influence DCP to allow the child to be returned to proper adult care.

Then there is the time one of my doctors called me in tears—I was actually cutting someone open in ED at the time—saying, "I've got a problem. There's a child here who I need help with and DCP is not helping me." What had actually happened? It was a six-week-old infant who had been brought in three days prior because it was unable to feed; it was actually malnourished. The infant was malnourished because the mother was away in Perth seeking drugs and the grandmother, who was a schizophrenic patient, was not able to give the child bottle-fed milk. She was instructed and given help and support, and off they went again. The child came in again in a perilous state—dehydrated and malnourished. I have photographs on my phone, and I am very happy to show them later to anyone who is interested. I said, "Has DCP been involved?" They replied that, yes, it had and there would be a team meeting on Tuesday. They were in Fremantle. This was on a Thursday. I was livid. I took some time out from my busy clinic and called DCP. I was told, "Yes, we will deal with it on Tuesday." It was unacceptable. The department is in Fremantle and the child was in the Wheatbelt and action needed to be taken. The answer was that it had been registered with DCP and there would be a team meeting on Tuesday. I was not satisfied, so I gave the young doctor guidance and said, "Watch this." I called the DCP officer in the local town and said, "You will come and assess the child now; it's a matter of emergency." They said, "Oh, but it's late. We're just about to break up for the day." It was a Thursday afternoon. I insisted they come to the ED and see the child, and they did, but with much muttering and with much deprecation. They were actually considering making a complaint about me because of my actions to save that child. They eventually came and realised the child was at death's door. They said, "Oh well, we'll make arrangements to have the child put into care." My response was to get the Royal Flying Doctor Service to take the child to Perth Children's Hospital and sent a long letter explaining what had happened. I spoke with the paediatrician, who smiled—I think he smiled because there was a gentle laugh at the end—and said, "Yes, we've dealt with this before with DCP. It's standard procedure." They happily took the child and I do not know what happened after that because, of course, it was not in my hands anymore. The concept that concerned doctors could be rebuffed for a team meeting when something might happen, when a child is at death's door—it was actually within 24 hours of dying of multi-organ system failure because of dehydration and malnourishment—is going on today.

Time does not permit me to carry on with this, so I will stop right here and just point out that there are systemic issues at play here and both sides of politics need to fix it. It is not about what government wants to do; it is the quality of the people who are dealing with it. I have spoken with DCP providers. They are the people employed in the offices, the hardworking DCP people who are exposed to this trauma day after day, and who suffer their own PTSD because they are doing their best to help these children who are at risk of severe problems. It is not just surviving the day; it is also the ongoing education, or lack of education, throughout their lives. They are disadvantaged from the very outset and they are trying their best to help, but all they have is bureaucratic box-ticking methods and management who do not seem to care about the individual but more about the statistics they are giving to the department. I have spoken to these people on a number of occasions, and I am sure Hon Nick Goiran has done so as well, and they are burnt out because the passion and the desire to care for these vulnerable, desperately at-risk children has simply dissipated with the backlog of cases they have to deal with and the lack of real help offered. I have seen this with children in foster care in another area in which I have worked. I have seen the pain when a family that has been doing a fantastic job with six or seven children brought into foster care has had the children taken from that safe caring environment and put back into the very same environment they were removed from because the parents need to be given a chance to educate the children and bring them up in a culturally appropriate way. We are failing.

Hon Jess Beckerling (10:59 am): I rise today to make a brief contribution on this motion. I thank Hon Nick Goiran for moving it today during this important National Child Protection Week. As I begin my contribution, I want to acknowledge the tragic history that stains child protection in this state. I want to pay my respects and extend my sympathies to the victim-survivors of the stolen generations and their families. I acknowledge that while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids are no longer being removed under the abhorrent and racist 1905 act, they are still removed at a rate that is 20 times higher than that of non-Aboriginal children.

In 1997 in WA, there were 310 Indigenous children living in out-of-home care. That was about 28% of all children in care at that time. In 2023, that figure climbed to 3,068 Aboriginal children, which is 59% of all children in care, while Aboriginal children make up only about 7% of Western Australia's total child population. This is a systemic failure. A recent Human Rights Watch reports states that many Aboriginal children are still being removed from their families because of a system that focuses more on policing families than providing them with much-needed support. Only a small proportion of the money that the WA government spends on child protection is used for family support services. In the year 2022–23, less than 5% of the government's total child protection expenditure was allocated to family support services, which is the lowest of any state or territory, compared with the national average of 15%. The report found that neglect is often conflated with poverty and used to justify removal. Poverty, including housing and food insecurity, must be treated as a state failure, as opposed to a failure of an individual that justifies child removal. It is well known that current Australian social welfare payments are not adequate to lift people out of poverty.

Human Rights Watch also reported that Aboriginal mothers are avoiding seeking help to escape family and domestic violence for fear that their child or children will be removed. Under WA law, a child is deemed in need of protection if the department successfully argues to the Children's Court of WA that a child has suffered or is likely to suffer harm because of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse or neglect. In cases relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, the most common reasons for reports to the Department of Communities are allegations concerning exposure to FDV. Women share stories of having children removed as they try to escape violence, instead of receiving the necessary support to access safety.

Child protection, I am sure everyone in this chamber will agree, is the responsibility of whole communities. Everyone who has raised kids knows what a massive difference it makes to have a community from which support can be drawn. Often we do not even realise how critical it was until our kids are much older and we look back and realise who we were depending on. Although doing it isolated is extremely challenging for the parent or parents and introduces all sorts of problems for the kids, from adults in our homes, community centres in our neighbourhoods to our schools and here in the halls of Parliament, keeping kids safe from harm and giving the best chance to thrive is all our responsibility.

Child protection is also not limited just to the crisis care that many of us envisage when we hear the term spoken out loud. Although I commend the government on the important steps it has been taking to improve the practices of child protection workers in this state, including the provision of additional funding to help with the resource strains in this year's budget, together with the important work to establish culturally appropriate practice frameworks that are Aboriginal-led, I invite everyone here to consider that protecting young people from harm can and must extend beyond the limited and narrow scope of a single government department.

To understand what is possible, I draw on the wisdom and knowledge of First Nations community leaders, the voices of children and young people themselves, the Commissioner for Children and Young People and the recommendations that came out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Inherent in First Nation's people's approaches to protecting a child's wellbeing is the concept of holistic, community-wide social and emotional wellbeing. That is, for our koolangkas, or children, to grow up into strong, healthy adults, they must grow up connected to family, community and culture. They must be connected to a healthy natural environment and, for First Nations kids, to their own country. They need access to nutritious food, clean air and clean drinking water. They must grow up in communities free of poverty and housing insecurity and in classrooms and public domains free of systemic racism. Of course, they must also grow up in homes and communities free of all forms of violence.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People, informed by the voices of more than 11,000 children, advocates for child protection in WA to be focused on seven key priorities. They are: Early intervention and family support strategies; stability and connection planning; improving health outcomes; support for out-of-home care leavers; support for First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse children in out-of-home care; addressing the crossover from protection to youth justice; and independent advocacy for children and young people in the child protection system. This focus on prevention, on early intervention and wraparound support underpins best practice and holistic approaches to child protection. It requires governments to prioritise and invest adequately in diverting families from child protection services through other means, including—but, of course, not limited to—free school food programs, public housing and homelessness support, to parenting and family supports and investment in truly community-led and culturally responsive family and domestic violence support.

The theme for this year's National Child Protection Week, as Hon Nick Goiran mentioned, is Every Conversation Matters and Shifting Conversations to Action. There can be perhaps no more comprehensive invitation to act on child protection than the 310 recommendations that were laid out in the findings of the recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In her 2018 speech, the then Minister for Child Protection, Hon Simone McGurk, said the following:

I am proud to state to the house that in response to the evidence and subsequent recommendations, the McGowan government has accepted, or accepted in principle, 93 per cent—or 289 of 310—of the applicable recommendations.

But the most recent annual progress report from 2022 shows that the government has implemented 167 of those 310 recommendations, or just 53%. I noted that Hon Jackie Jarvis introduced some new information to us in the chamber earlier, and I am looking forward to following up on that. It goes to the lack of these progress reports. We have been waiting for three years now to see what progress has been made to implement the remaining 47% of those recommendations, which we all agreed were so critical to be implemented.

I conclude my contribution today with the hope that the that this Cook Labor government will continue to deliver on its commitment to implementing the remaining 47% of those recommendations and that it will consider the many other factors that I have mentioned today that increase a family's risk of interacting with the child protection system. I hope that the government increases the funding and prioritisation of prevention, early intervention and support models, lifts kids out of poverty and addresses the root causes of harm and continues to actively cede the responsibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander protection and all the long-term connected family-oriented care to adequately funded and appropriately respected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Organisations. Thank you.

Hon Maryka Groenewald (11:07 am): I, too, rise to support this very important motion, which is close to my heart, and commend Hon Nick Goiran for standing up for this issue over the years and being able to glean and learn so much in this space.

Having National Child Protection Week is important because it gives us the space to re-evaluate where we are at. Perhaps we are not doing things as well as we should be. Although these weeks are important, I think there needs to be some action attached to them. How are we tracking on these key metrics? How are we going, as Hon Jess Beckerling said, in how we are accessing reports and measuring the efficacy of these programs in our community? That is very important. It is important, too, to discuss how we as lawmakers can promote the best interests of our children. The key is how we can have policies and laws that actually place children first, recognising that they really are the most vulnerable in our community. Every conversation does, indeed, matter.

I will start with the Fogliani report. A classic example is that during estimates we were faced with Dorothy Dixers and time fillers, and questions on social issues hardly seemed to be answered most of the time. I have asked this question several times over the last couple of weeks, especially in regards to the Fogliani report: Where are the recommendations up to, and which of these key recommendations have been implemented? From 2019 to now, only eight of those crucial recommendations have been implemented. We have an issue as significant as children and young people with suicidal ideations and we are still finding that most of the recommendations about looking after the holistic wellbeing of a child's mental health is still is not addressed as it should be. Each unimplemented recommendation represents a safeguard that could save children's lives. The answers I have received are that many of the recommendations are still pending. There are also the non-answers that we get, which was mentioned earlier.

It seems to be the same same. The status quo is not a good thing when we are talking about the wellbeing of children and young people.

At the same time, there is a lack of urgency on our adoption policy. I know that this might not be a palatable conversation for many people, but we are creating so many different avenues for people to have children yet we are not willing to have a look at the adoption policy in Western Australia. In WA, more than 5,300 children live in out-of-home care, and over half of them—over 2,000 children—have been there for more than five years. In contrast, when we look at the figures for 2023–24, only 23 adoptions were finalised in Western Australia. There were just five local adoptions alongside three intercountry and three step-parent adoptions of children. The number of adoptions has collapsed from 673 children being placed in 1997 to just a handful today. I know that many families are willingly fostering children, but adoption, as a long-term viable option, really does need some consideration. At the same time, the government is exploring all these new ways to have children, but we cannot speak about one area of policy that we could absolutely look at in this conversation around child protection and providing children with a stable, loving home. Of course, we must explore how we can reform these laws and processes so that children can find more permanent homes.

It is interesting that when we look at the issue of child protection, factors around families such as domestic violence and mental health issues are on the rise. Children are growing up in these environments. Yes, we are throwing extra money at it, as the government has stated, but more kids are in care, where the issues become more complex. That workforce is absolutely struggling within its limited capacity of staff and funding, despite more money being thrown at it.

Recently, the health minister and the Attorney General have worked together to again stonewall me when I talk about the issue of child protection in the context of gender experiments on children. This is a very important issue to consider as well, and something that I am deeply mindful of. The drugs that we are prescribing to young children are not neutral. If we are looking at child protection, we need to look at this issue as a whole. We are finding that countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland are banning the use of those synthetic drugs, knowing that it has a tremendous impact on children's wellbeing and mental health. As Western Australians, we have to take notice and look at those changes. With the limited time that I have left, I note that on Monday we launched a parliamentary petition calling for three things that I think fit within the child protection space and look at the notion that every conversation matters. It seeks an inquiry into the gender diversity service, to look into the fact that the Fogliani recommendations are not being implemented at the pace that they should have been, and, of course, to look at the wraparound services that families need, especially when we are looking at the longevity and wellbeing of children.

What we do in this space and how we look after the most vulnerable in our community has lasting implications. It can be for good or it can be for bad. That is why I am happy to support this motion today, because the demands it makes of this government are entirely appropriate and absolute common sense. Even from my time working with young people in care, I know that young people just want stability. They want to know that people are there for them and love them. The stability of home and the stability of families is so crucial. I really encourage us, when we have these conversations, to look at the avenues that already exist and at how we can strengthen policies on things like adoption to make stable homes more available to those children and young people who are perhaps in care.

Hon Michelle Hofmann (11:13 am): I rise to support this incredibly timely motion, given that it is National Child Protection Week. I commend Hon Nick Goiran for bringing this motion to the house and I commend my colleagues who have spoken on it this morning. I will start by acknowledging the incredible work of all child protection workers, who are at the coalface of this issue. Many of them are incredibly passionate and give so much of themselves to their role, far beyond what their job description might require, but I wish that we had less need for them because I wish that we did not have an issue of such scale. This year's theme during National Child Protection Week is "Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation To Action". It is a powerful reminder that although our words are profoundly important, they are not enough—we also need to act. It is our responsibility as legislators to turn recognition of these issues into reform and to turn our policies into tangible protections.

I am very passionate about this issue not just as a legislator; it also goes to the heart of who I am as a mother of three beautiful kids. The idea that there are kids in our state who are constantly suffering harm and neglect is truly heartbreaking. The motion before us today identifies some of the systemic issues in the structures of our regulatory system and exposes how kids are falling through the cracks, with some kids falling through the cracks repeatedly. In 2023–24, the Department of Communities received over 61,000 reports and identified over 71,000 children of concern across WA. The scale of these figures shows why this motion is so urgent. The motion calls for change across our system to break cycles of trauma and build a better future.

In WA today, over 5,200 children are in out-of-home care, with Aboriginal children 20 times more likely to be removed from their families than non-Indigenous children. I want to highlight a story that was raised in March last year. It is a terrible example of how problems within our system can exacerbate harm to children. In March 2024, Briana received an email from Western Australia's child protection authorities informing her that they were planning to remove her only child, her three-month-old, from her care. This email came shortly after the domestic violence refuge in which she had lived since Mica's birth had evicted them. Child protection workers were taking the child from Briana's care due to her unstable housing situation. The words that Briana has spoken on this highlight the issue before us:

They never had an issue with my parenting until I didn't have a roof over my head … Just because someone's homeless we shouldn't be taking the child off them. You should be offering them more help if anything.

This demonstrates how we are creating further issues in some situations when what is really required is to address the root cause of the issue of concern and actually provide care to people in those situations.

I would like to focus on a different aspect of our child protection processes, and it is one that I believe is working quite well. I think it is important to be mindful of it and to consider the principles that underlie it as we talk about the measures that we should be implementing in the child protection space. Many members may be aware of the working with children legislation that we have here in Western Australia. I was pleased to hear further comments this morning that even though they may be quite late in coming, there are further enhancements and the system is constantly being reviewed and improvements sought. This act is one of our clearest statements about where the balance of risk must always lie, with a child's safety placed above all else. It established a screening scheme requiring anyone in child-related work to hold a valid working with children check card. Hundreds of thousands of active working with children check cards are provided in WA, which is a reflection of the scale of this scheme and the impact and focus we have on protecting children in schools, sports clubs and communities.

A detailed process is involved; I have gone through it myself as a volunteer in my local community. Applications are assessed by the Department of Communities' screening unit. They take into account particular issues of concern, which could be criminal charges or convictions, including spent convictions, relevant professional conduct and any other matters that might indicate risk. The outcome is simple—a certificate is provided if there is a positive notice, or if there is a negative notice, the individual who applied is prevented from engaging in child-related work. At the time when the legislation was brought in, the focus behind this—the fundamental principle that underlined this scheme and legislation—was that people with criminal histories who put our children at risk, particularly acts of paedophilia and other sexual deviance, should not be allowed to work with children. This is clearly what our community expects.

There are a variety of provisions in the legislation that prevent someone from obtaining a working with children check. If an applicant has been convicted of a class 1 offence, they are automatically given a negative notice. Those offences include—it is in section 12(7) of the legislation—murder of a child, sexual offences against children and persistent child sexual abuse. There are no exceptions to this because the assessment of such blatant sex offenders is not considered necessary, and a negative offence notice will be automatically issued. There are other offences that do not always result in the rejection of an application, but there is an assumption of a negative notice unless there are exceptional circumstances. Those are class 2 offences, which are for serious but broader offences such as violent assaults, child pornography or serious drug offences. The key point here is that there are critical, serious offences that we consider, as a society, should preclude someone from being able to work with children because we are interested in ensuring that we can protect children wherever we can.

The legislation goes even further. It even extends to young offenders. Schools are prohibited from arranging work experience placements in their schools for students who have committed any of these class 1 or class 2 offences. Even supervised short-term school activities are barred because we are so concerned about the risk for our children. These provisions show a consistent principle that, when in doubt, we put children first. These principles should guide all areas of child protection including our placement decisions, emergency care practises, support for carers and the oversight of children who are missing from care.

National Child Protection Week asks us to shift from conversation to action. Our working with children regime clearly shows what action looks like—clear rules, strict prohibitions and child safety as the overriding principle. Let us measure all of our child protection policies against that standard. This motion does exactly that; it calls for abandoning a failed amalgamation policy that buried child protection in a mega department, exacerbating the risks of children falling through the cracks. This motion calls for supporting independent avenues for children to raise concerns directly with the Commissioner for Children and Young People—something I am sure my colleague will speak on momentarily. It calls for the urgent implementation of the remaining Royal Commission recommendations. It calls for regular reporting and transparency and, above all, a system that provides every child with the protection that they deserve. I urge members to support the motion.

Hon Rod Caddies (11:23 am): I had something else that I planned to speak about, but a lot has been spoken about, so I have made a few different notes here. I want to talk about some stuff. I worked in residential care for 15 years with the Department for Child Protection and Family Support, so I have had a lot of firsthand experience with the impacts on young people in care and the importance we should place on how we go about bringing people into care. Too often we see governments stepping in only at crisis point, when children and families are already distressed. Families already know things are getting bad and they are looking for help.

I will give an example of a lady who talked to me when I was in residential care. She was an Indigenous lady. She had two young girls living with her who were her nieces. She had had them in her care for quite a while and they were doing very well. Her rent had gone up $50 a week and she could not afford it. Basically, she had her two nieces, they were doing very well, but her rent went up and she could not care for them. She had to go live with other relatives on a couch and could not take them with her. I tried to send emails asking whether there was something we could do or whether there were other options. The reason I am telling this story is because we are talking about the Department of Communities and the department for child protection and putting them into a big mega department. Even when it was the department for child protection, it was hard enough to get things to where they needed to be, get approvals and make that happen. We could have found a way to say, "Hey, let us pay the rent for a year, $50 a week, so those girls would still be in care of their auntie." Instead, it is thousands of dollars in costs to keep kids in care and the devastation it brings to them and their whole family. That cost alone would be a good reason to do it, but also for the reasons that I am saying. We say child protection is in the best interests of the child, but I do not think government decisions like that are in the best interests of a child. It has been a problem. It is not just a Liberal or Labor government problem. It does not matter who is in government. I was there for 15 years. I have seen it on both sides. It was a problem from both governments. I think governments are often doing the best they can, but they are not getting down and speaking to the people who really understand and know what could be done to fix some of these things that would be, firstly, better for the community, and secondly, good for the taxpayer.

We heard Hon Jess Beckerling talk about putting more money into intervention programs prior to this happening. I think that is where, as a government, we should be focusing and putting more money into: support and prevention. I think that would eliminate a lot of the problems. There are so many terrible stories I could tell about children who I cared for—sorry, obviously, it is quite emotional for me.

The Acting President: Honourable member, would you like to take some time? Shall we come back to you when you have recovered?

Hon Rod Caddies: Thank you.

Hon Neil Thomson (11:28 am): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important issue on National Child Protection Week. Thank you to the other speakers. I have been very touched by all the contributions made here today. I think all members in this place know that the most vulnerable people in the community are our children. We all endeavour, in our own way, to see an improvement. Some of conversation referred to as part of the theme of Child Protection Week is "Every Conversation Matters" because we know that the challenge of child protection is ongoing in our society. Unfortunately, we see so many factors and such complex issues that, in some in ways, it cannot be fully resolved. There are always going to be issues as we go forward in our society.

We could name some of those mental health challenges, particularly with social media. I have raised issues in this place about access to drugs and, for example, vapes. I note a recent article in The West Australian that said it was under the counter. Sorry, it is actually on the counter and within a few yards of the school close to where I stay when I am in Perth. They are openly available for children to access for sale without any regulation. We see the challenges of some of the chemicals that are included in those vapes.

We have seen the rise of drugs. We will speak on the liquor control legislation in this place, and we know that alcohol forms a very big part of problem drinking and the family violence that comes from that. In my region I have also seen a massive increase in the use of hard drugs, particularly methamphetamine, which is impacting on the terrible crime statistics that we see in family and domestic violence. In the Kimberley, in terms of averages, you are 30-times more likely to be assaulted. All these issues are plain for us to see. We have a great report available online—the Child Protection Activity Performance Information report. It is quite thorough and quite telling.

I think of the conversations we have to have to really see what we can offer. I am sure as members of the communities that we represent, we ask, "What can we add to the conversation? What can we add to it?" I note that there are things in the data that seem to provide a much greater increase in matters and processes for child safety investigations. I did not look at the data from 2017–18 or 2023–24. By comparison, in some ways much of that data has not changed a lot. The number of children in care is the same, around 5,000. But we seem to see a greater backlog and I think the minister could maybe look at that in terms of how investigations into child protection matters are processed and the timeliness of that.

May I add, there was also the opportunity to refer to the Office of the Auditor General's report on the child protection case management system. Again, it is a practical application. This is a very important tool for our child protection officers. I add to the endorsement by many members in this place that the officers do incredible work. They have a very difficult role, and I acknowledge the pay rise for some of the lowest paid members that was offered by this government. I want to be positive about some of the things they have done, because we need to make it a more positive place to work and attract more of those people to be able to do the work that is required. However, I note there are some very serious findings in relation to the case management system and some of those reports are due in December this year.

My suggestion, if I may, to the minister and the department, notwithstanding some of the structural issues that Hon Nick Goiran has also talked about, is to please separate the department so it can focus on its job. I made a suggestion to use technology to a greater ability and to really embrace the new technology so that we can track families and provide support. There are many things I could say, but the government should exercise those powers that it has or has the ability to have. I think part of the job is at least finding the low-hanging fruit and implementing the things that can be implemented so that we can make some progress. Every single change, every child that is affected, is an improvement that can be made. Noting the comments made by the honourable member to my left, I might give him the opportunity, if that is within the order of this place, for a few minutes for a final statement, if he wishes. I acknowledge that, thank you.

The Acting President (Hon Dr Brian Walker): I am sorry, honourable member, that is not actually possible. Does Hon Nick Goiran want to have a word in reply?

Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (11:34 am) in reply: Acting President, just to conclude, I acknowledge the contributions made by the various members, including Hon Dr Brian Walker and his experience as a GP. I would like to spend more time talking about his contribution, but there is simply no time for it. I acknowledge Hon Jess Beckerling, in particular for her emphasis on the disproportionate number of Aboriginal children in care. Hon Maryka Groenewald spoke about the Fogliani report, amongst other things. Hon Michelle Hofmann gave a dissertation on the working with children check scheme. Hon Rod Caddies shared his very personal experience as an experienced practitioner dealing with residential care, and of course, I thank Hon Neil Thomson for his support on the motion. I wish we had more time to deal with some of the remarks made by the representative minister. I note that on the 10 points that I raised, not one word was made by the government—not one word. There were eight things addressed, but nothing with regard to the practice of children sleeping on floors, nor with this consistent practice of children going home with workers. Why was nothing mentioned about that today? That is a question that needs to be asked.

Motion lapsed, pursuant to standing orders.