Page 4528 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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MR COE: Yes, Mr Speaker. Minister, what responsibility do you take for the failure of systems, policies and procedures to change or improve, at least during the last two years under your watch?
MS BURCH: There have been improvements in out of home care and in a whole range of areas in the office for children, youth and family services. On the concept of kinship support, in the last budget we put in additional support. We put in a kinship support team for the absolute direct purpose of providing additional direct support to kinship carers. That is something that is now implemented. I expect that to be in place early in the new year. To sit there and say that policies and procedures have not changed and there has been no improvement to the system is an absolute wrongness.
MRS DUNNE: A supplementary question, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, what do you say to the people engaged in the child protection services system who continue to be exposed to the failings that were first identified in 2004?
MS BURCH: I thank Mrs Dunne for her question. What I will not be saying to them is what Mrs Dunne uses this place to say. What I will not be saying to them is that they are ignorant, arrogant and wilfully placing children at risk. That is what I will not be saying to the care and protection workers in the system because I think that is an absolutely horrid interpretation and description of people that come to work each and every day to care for the most vulnerable in our community.
Mr Hanson: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, the question was what she will say, not what she will not say.
MR SPEAKER: Do you wish to add anything, Ms Burch? No.
MRS DUNNE: Supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, if you can’t fix the problems, will you resign and let someone else in who can fix the problems?
MS BURCH: I thank Mrs Dunne for her question. We were both on Ross Solly this morning. Mrs Dunne was asked a number of times what she would do. Ross Solly seemed to understand the difficult, complex circumstances of child placements.
Mrs Dunne: What a mess you’ve made of the job.
MS BURCH: No; he said that this is a difficult environment. And he asked you what you would do. He asked you a number of times what you would do. What did you come up with, Mrs Dunne? You were to empower the people; you were to have a
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