MINISTER FOR CHILD
PROTECTION — PERFORMANCE
119. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Premier:
I have a supplementary question.
Thank you, Premier. If secret reports that sit on the shelf unattended, raids
on whistleblower homes, failures to meet
child safety key performance indicators and strikes by child protection workers
underway right now is an acceptable standard for a minister in the Premier's
government, what does a minister need to do to be relieved of their portfolio?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I think that is just a repeat of
what the Leader of the Opposition said before. The number of additional staff
we have put in as child protection
caseworkers has grown by 28.6 per cent, which is a total of 201.8 full-time
equivalent employees, over our time in office. During the Leader of the
Opposition's last term in office, it was 13.3 FTEs. We have increased
the number by 201; during the Leader of the Opposition's last term in
office it increased by 13. Over the Leader
of the Opposition's entire time in office, the number of caseworkers
increased by 78; over eight and a half years, it went up by 78. Over our
five years in office, it has gone up by 201. These are the people on the ground
who work with children who are in need of care and are under the department's
sole protection. So that is a demonstration of a minister who comes to the
Expenditure Review Committee and through the budget process actually gets
outcomes that assist vulnerable children who are in need.
On the other issue of the documents
that were removed from the department, as I outlined to the Leader of the
Opposition before—I think the Leader of the Opposition needs to listen
to this—2 646 documents were removed, including 151 presentations and
332 spreadsheets that included highly confidential personal information about
children in care. That information should not be removed from the department.
It is not the sort of thing that should be available to be released, and so
that is why it was a significant issue. The department initiated the actions as
required under the Public Sector Management Act 1994, which was passed by
Richard Court and Hendy Cowan when they came to office, the best part of 30
years ago, and which has not been changed. They are the processes that are
required by law. The context, or the tone, of the Leader of the Opposition's
question is that somehow the government or the department should have broken
the law, or the minister should intervene to enforce the breaking of the law. I
do not understand why the Leader of the Opposition would suggest such a thing.
I do not understand why anyone would suggest such a thing. You have to act with
propriety when you are in government. The minister and the government have
allowed for the processes of the department and the police investigations,
perhaps in conjunction with their lawyers and whatever, to run without
political interference by the minister or me or any other members of the government. The tone of the Leader of the
Opposition's question is that it should be all political and
somehow the law—the Public Sector Management Act—should be
broken. That is just not something that is appropriate and it shows how unfit
for office the Leader of the Opposition is.
The SPEAKER: That concludes
question time.