Child Protection

CHILD PROTECTION: FIXING A BROKEN SYSTEM

Introduction

The child protection system in our state is broken. South Australia has a fundamental obligation to protect vulnerable children from unsafe living situations, but repeated high-profile failures in child protection have left the community with little confidence in the system.

One of the main problems is the almost complete lack of accountability for these failures in the Department of Child Protection. There is no independent oversight of what is essentially a closed, self-regulating system and an entrenched toxic culture in the department itself.

The result has been poor decision making; unnecessarily increased costs (particularly those associated with residential care); fatigue and stress among frontline workers experiencing increased risks to their safety; inconsistent policies; and a failure to genuinely engage with families and foster carers experiencing procedural unfairness.

Children are being harmed – in some cases dying – under a system which has failed to recruit, retain and support foster and kinship carers to leading to over-reliance on residential care. This is completely unacceptable.

OUR POLICIES

Improving accountability and oversight

Royal commissions, reviews, inquiries and policy re-writes responding to high profile failures have not resolved systemic issues in child protection. Successive state governments have relied on short-term superficial responses and public relations exercises rather than genuine structural reform. Policies exist on paper but are routinely ignored in practice with little or no consequence for failure, even when children are harmed. Complaints are commonly investigated internally, lack transparency, and rarely deliver just or meaningful outcomes, allowing the department to continue assessing its own performance and avoid meaningful scrutiny.

One Nation will improve accountability and oversight by:

• advocating for the establishment of an independent statutory commission empowered and resourced to provide regular oversight of the Department of Child Protection and authorised to investigate failures; and
• strengthening whistleblower protections related to the child protection system.

Enforcing procedural fairness

Families, foster and kinship carers, and frontline workers have frequently been denied procedural fairness in decisions affecting the lives of vulnerable children.

One Nation will improve procedural fairness by:

• resourcing active enforcement of lawful and objective decision-making standards across the child protection system; and
• addressing department cultural issues that have resulted in retaliatory practices against families and carers, with serious consequences for non-compliance.

Supporting carers to reduce reliance on residential care

Residential care is expensive, unstable, and consistently produces poor outcomes for children and young people, yet South Australia continues to rely on it as a default option rather than as a last resort. Residential facilities are simply not a safe or appropriate substitute for family-based care.

One Nation considers that family-based care must be prioritised and that residential care should only be used when absolutely necessary, such as when a young person cannot be safely placed within family-based care.

One Nation will support carers and reduce reliance on residential care by:

• providing genuine support which reduces the burden on foster and kinship carers;
• strengthening early intervention and intensive family and carer support to prevent unnecessary removals and placement breakdowns, providing better stability for children; and
• establishing a charter of enforceable family and carer rights and responsibilities under legislation, with clear provisions for non-discrimination, access to justice and meaningful input into children’s care planning and strong child safety safeguards.

One Nation will also seek a comprehensive review of departmental spending with a focus on redirecting resources to support carers and frontline workers, and fund the statutory commission’s oversight and investigative functions. It will be mandated that carers have meaningful input into structural reform so that it prioritises family-based care.