'I have to go': Pru Goward hangs up on interview over secret report
NSW minister for family services Pru Goward blamed the premier’s department for the decision to withhold a damning report into NSW’s out-of-home care system .
Goward appeared on ABC Canberra radio on Wednesday morning and when the questioning turned from local issues to the Tune report she appeared to end the interview abruptly with: “I have to go.”
A spokesman said the ABC was aware Goward had limited time available and had now agreed to an on-air apology, after broadcasting her hang-up and then tweeting about it. The ABC said they acknowledged she did not leave the interview because of the questioning.
The Tune report into the NSW child protection system, which was delivered to the cabinet in 2016, was withheld from the public for two years.
It was released this week, after the Upper House of the NSW parliament ordered the release. The move was supported by a maverick Liberal Matthew Mason-Cox, who crossed the floor to support the minor parties and Labor.
Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon
Asked why it had been kept secret, Goward said: “It was a decision made by a previous minister, and of course it was written for the cabinet.”
“The premier’s department particularly gave very strong advice that we need to preserve the rights of the cabinet to have confidential information provided to it and for it to remain confidential,” she said.
The report, by the former senior public servant David Tune, paints a damning picture of out-of home care in NSW, finding the government spent $1.86bn on vulnerable families in 2015-16 but spending was “crisisoriented” and had “evolved in an ad hoc way”.
Goward said she was “perfectly comfortable” with the Tune report being released.
“We have done wonderful things in child protection as a result of that report and I think the challenge is to find areas where we have failed to act.”
The minister, who is also the member for Goulburn, had been asked to appear on the program to discuss the Murrumbateman school. The interview ran for 13 minutes and after dealing with the school issue, veered onto the Tune report.
Tune said in the report there was “significant unmet demand” and inefficiency, with only one in three reports of children at risk of significant harm being investigated by a family and community services (Facs) worker.
The report said the cost of providing out-of-home care – mainly foster home placements – had risen sharply since the government began transferring responsibility to nongovernment organisations in 2012.
“The average unit cost of a child in care of an NGO is $41,000 ... while a child in [Facs] care is $27,000,” Tune said.
Almost 60% of children were now in the care of NGOs and they were staying there longer because the bulk of funding was spent on out-of-home care “instead of addressing family needs earlier”, the report found.
Aboriginal children are disproportionately represented in out-of-home care.
In a statement responding to the release of the report, Goward said the government had committed $190m over four years from 2016-17 as an immediate response and that early results were promising, with the numbers of children in care falling.