David Penberthy: Shannon McCoole case shows Families SA must be completely rebuilt

THE term ‘red flag’ doesn’t get within cooee of describing the dysfunctional indicators attached to former Families SA worker Shannon McCoole.

IN policing and intelligence circles, the term “red flag” describes suspicious behaviour that points to possible wrongdoing. In the case of former Families SA worker Shannon McCoole, the term “red flag” doesn’t get within cooee of describing the dysfunctional indicators attached to this monster.

You could barely see Shannon McCoole for red flags. He was the walking embodiment of dangerously aberrant conduct, a man seemingly incapable of behaving in a normal fashion.

The people we pay through our taxes to protect children did nothing to stop him from harming them.

There is a depressing contrast between the negligent indifference Families SA extended towards this creep and the bureaucratic pedantry that has subjected law-abiding, community-minded adults to lengthy police checks in this state.

At least the circumstances surrounding McCoole’s continued employment are now the subject of proper investigation. Equally heartening is the fact that the State Government, finally, has announced it will scrap police checks and mandatory notification requirements for parents who volunteer for school sport and excursions.

All Education Department workers, volunteers working with Families SA or children with disabilities, and anyone attending overnight camps or school sleepovers, will still need a history check.

It is a great pity that this reform took so long, and particularly galling that this intrusion upon innocent parents overlapped with a time when a genuine monster was given repeated second chances with such abysmal results.

I have no intention here of repeating the more stomach-churning evidence that has been presented thus far to the Royal Commission into Families SA. I really wish I had not read the details in the news reports thus far about the conduct of McCoole that raised suspicions on the part of so many of his colleagues.

All of those suspicions were ignored by managers up the chain, or were never passed on anyway in this defeatist workplace.

Suffice to say that there is one bit of evidence that tells you everything you need to know about suspicions held about McCoole.

One child in state care nicknamed him Mr Paedophile. Not a great handle when you’re in the child protection caper, you would think.

Not so at Families SA, where McCoole was allowed to remain in an absolutely perfect environment for someone intent on committing his crimes.

Both the McCoole case and the issue of background checks for parents speak volumes about the warped sense of process that can take hold within our bureaucracies. McCoole never had any genuine action taken against him — which ideally would have involved his on-the-spot dismissal — because the department felt he had to be afforded due process.

At the same time, any parent who wanted to help out at footy, or tag along with their kid’s primary school class to the Adelaide Zoo, not only had to agree to and pass a background check, but they then had to attend a half-day seminar on the legal requirements for mandatory notifiers.

The McCoole case, and other cases such as that of Ashlee Polkinghorne, the derelict mother of the late Chloe Valentine, were made possible in part by the bureaucracy’s wasteful obsession with monitoring the innocent. The issues fed into each other, because the ability to identify and act against wrongdoers is not just one of policy but of resources.

You can only wonder how many working hours were wasted doing checks or running classes for dads who wanted to help out at school footy, even though they will never be in an environment where they are alone with children.

These background checks were barely worth the paper they were written on anyway because you could only pick up parents who had been caught and convicted of an offence, which clearly doesn’t always happen.

And so we end up with a department that is too busy to answer the child protection hotline because its systems are suspicious of everyone, apart from the demonstrable weirdo who actually works there.

As for Families SA, on the basis of the evidence to the Royal Commission thus far, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this department is culturally beyond redemption. The good lower-level staff seem browbeaten, while some of the managers seem like they are beyond caring, or too frazzled or distracted to care.

You can only hope that the evidence to the commission is describing an organisation not as it is, but as it was.

For if it is still like this, the joint should be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.