Royal Commission in Child Protection recommends SA Children’s Commissioner
A CHILDREN’S commissioner with wideranging powers to investigate the treatment of young people and promote their wellbeing has again been recommended to oversee systemic reform.
- MAIN REPORT: What the Royal Commissioner recommended
- VICTIMS: System is ‘not just broken, it’s really broken’
- McCOOLE: Shocking litany of blunders let monster loose
- UNMASKED: The freckle that helped SA Police catch McCoole
- TIMELINE: 20 key moments in the lead-up to the Royal Commission
A CHILDREN’S commissioner with wideranging powers to investigate the treatment of young people and promote their wellbeing has again been recommended to oversee systemic reform.
Child Protection Systems Royal Commissioner Margaret Nyland made the recommendation, which may help break a political deadlock that has been unresolved for three years.
The idea of appointing an independent officer who could examine failed systems and make public findings, as well as recommendations to ministers, was first presented in former Supreme Court judge Robyn Layton’s 2003 Child Protection Review, called when Labor came to power.
However, it has never been implemented amid a breakdown between the State Government and Upper House over what powers the Commissioner should be given to undertake their duties.
Commissioner Nyland says the children’s advocate should have a broad brief to promote the rights and interests of children as well as their ability to make decisions about their own lives.
She says the position should come with the same powers as the Ombudsman, which are equivalent to a Royal Commission. That would permit the children’s commissioner to obtain information from Government agencies and enter any of their premises to inspect an item.
The standing Royal Commission powers also mean the new children’s commissioner could summon any person to attend their office and provide documents, or give evidence under oath.
Commissioner Nyland said this position should be used to examine broad and systemic issues faced by children, rather than inquire into individual cases of mistreatment or complaints.
“Many people expressed a hope that a children’s commissioner would be capable of ‘fixing’ the system by providing a comprehensive independent complaints function,” she found.
“The commissioner would be required to have oversight of all children, not just those who are in care or in need of protection. If the commissioner is tasked with investigating individual complaints, the danger is that important systemic oversight and promotion of the rights
and wellbeing of all children, not just those in care, will be sidelined.”
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said the finding vindicated his longstanding call for the creation of a new office that came with strong powers to probe into Government activity.
“The Commissioner has absolutely rejected the Government’s position of a ‘children’s commissioner lite’,” he said. “This debate ... should have occurred years ago.
“We have left the children of this state vulnerable because of Labor’s inaction.”
Premier Jay Weatherill said the proposed model was different to that advocated by both parties.
“We didn’t want the children’s commissioner to have an investigation of individual complaints role, and the Commissioner agrees with that,” he said. “She’s essentially created a hybrid.
“I hope that the Parliament will now see its way clear to resolve it in that fashion.”