57. Chloe Valentine Inquest

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the Chloe Valentine Inquest.

Like many people, I watched the news in horror as the Coroner revealed the appalling failings of our child protection system. And I was moved to tears watching a grandmother dealing with the tragedy. I can not begin to imagine her pain and the fury she must feel having begged the authorities for custody of her grandchild.

But then came the Coroner’s recommendations, and frankly, I am sorry – but extrapolating from a case study is not really a good basis for social policy. Yes, in this case the actions of the Department are indefensible and there is little doubt that this child should have been removed from her parents, but it is not that long ago that we apologised for a generation stolen from their parents for what at the time seemed like good reasons.

There are costs to removing children from their parents as there are risks to leaving them, and we know that a change in policy to favour removal over risk management will lead to another generation of Aboriginal kids taken from their parents. The word Aboriginal did not appear in the Coroner’s report – and maybe that should be pause for thought when we move from reaction to policy.

And talking of dodgy policy, on what basis did the Coroner decide that Income Management would have helped the situation when most credible public policy analysis shows there is no basis for believing that restricting the expenditure of people on income support has any impact on behavioural choices or child welfare?

Income management was a paternalistic racist policy borne out of anecdotes, political expediency and at best a desperation to do something, anything. But it is not good policy and the Coroner’s report provided no evidence or argument about the success of Income Management – just an assumption and some moralistic judgement of what he thought was right.

Blokes at pubs make pronouncements on policy based on their own experience and anecdotes – but real public policy is more complicated than that. I’m no expert on child protection, but I know it is a fallacy of liberal philosophy that society is nothing but a collection of “individuals making their way” (to quote the late but not great invader of the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher).

Is it such a dream that we might start a serious public policy debate from an analysis of history, power and social structures?

And if we were doing that, would we start with lawyers in a quasi-judicial processes, or with someone who was an expert in child protection?

Of course as we grieve for an innocent child, this critique of the inquiry which is calling Families SA to account won’t make me popular. But for the record, SACOSS called for an independent inquiry into South Australia’s child protection system in January 2013. The government responded saying it was under control and a review wasn’t needed.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.


This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 14 April  2015