Nigel Hunt: With another Families SA alleged abuse scandal, we are failing our children

QUITE simply, the latest Families SA alleged abuse scandal doesn’t get much worse than this.

• 11 carers returned to kids despite red flags
• Child protection bombshell: Another carer charged with sex offences
• Nyland report: 260 recommendations for SA child protection system
• Inside story: How a freckle unmasked paedophile Shannon McCoole

ON a disaster scale of one to 10, this is probably about a 9.9. Quite simply, it doesn’t get much worse than this.

South Australians have every right to be asking just how a carer singled out by a highly respected former police commissioner for careful scrutiny could be investigated, cleared and put back to work with children — only to be arrested and charged a year later with multiple sex offences involving children in his care.

By their very nature, such people are devious, calculating and careful. They cunningly manoeuvre themselves into a position whereby they can fulfil their evil fantasies.

Shannon McCoole was a textbook example of this.

While the carer charged on Saturday is innocent until proven guilty, there appear to be a number of similarities in the failure of the processes involved.

In the absence of any explanation as to who conducted the investigation into the carer after he was red-flagged by former police commissioner Mal Hyde in his late 2014 review of 500 foster and residential carers, South Australians are left wondering just how rigorous and effective it was.

Was it conducted by Families SA staff — as in the comical McCoole investigation — or were properly trained child abuse specialists used to interrogating those facing such allegations employed to vet the carers before they were cleared to again work with children?

While the utmost caution should be taken to avoid prejudicing the carer’s trial, simple questions such as this can readily be answered without doing so.

Once again, the Government has decided to keep the public in the dark. The silence is strikingly similar to that which followed McCoole’s arrest.

In that case, it was The Advertiser that told the public how a predator had slipped through the net because of repeated bungles involving the allegations made against him a year before his arrest.

South Australians and their children deserve better than this.

They deserve to know such basic information.

There is also another troubling aspect to this sorry state of affairs.

The admission by Minister Susan Close that she did not bother reading the Hyde report until the proverbial hit the fan is of serious concern.

Surely one of the first things a new minister — in any portfolio — would do is get their hands on the latest, most up-to-date reports on topical issues within their new portfolio and peruse them. Particularly if the issue happens to be child protection.

How can any minister possibly hope to manage the future effectively without being acutely aware of past failures and what has been done to remedy them?

In late September, Ms Close told Parliament she had not read the Hyde review. She said she had relied on others to tell her that everything was under control in this area.

If she was comfortable with that assurance, why then did she read the report only after one of those singled out by the review came under police scrutiny?

Similarly, why has she now engaged a prominent law firm to again review recruiting procedures if she was happy with those assurances?

It is obvious nothing has been learned from the past. Former Minister Jennifer Rankine was severely let down by a department executive who subsequently fell on his sword in the cyclone that followed Shannon McCoole’s arrest in 2014.

While this isn’t quite groundhog day, it is getting perilously close to it.