THE Liberals have been accused of a high-level, calculated cover-up of a serious child protection crisis on the North-West. Opposition Leader Bryan Green is urging the Premier to sack Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma over the failure, or force her to apologise. Ms Petrusma has consistently stated she knew nothing of 151 previously ignored child safety alerts until August 17. However, the opposition says Right to Information documents confirm beyond doubt the minister's office knew at least five days earlier. Mr Green said that under parliamentary convention, when a minister's office knows something, so does the minister. Labor asked for all correspondence relating to the crisis between the department and minister's office, from when the agency first found out on July 27 and when the problem was finally made public. They were told 127 documents related to their response, but the contents were all blocked from public release. The response confirmed two emails about the crisis were sent from the department to the minister's office on August 12 and 13 for "internal briefing information of a minister". Mr Green said either Ms Petrusma misled Parliament or staff deliberately withheld information from her. The Premier resisted Labor's calls to dump his minister, saying Ms Petrusma took full responsibility for the failure and was working to fix a broken child safety system. Mr Green said the response set a dangerous precedent. "Effectively, what he has told the state of Tasmania is that if there is a disaster in anyone's portfolio, as long as the staff don't tell the minister, it's OK," he said. "Someone needs to take responsibility for the failure of the community's most vulnerable people." Ms Petrusma said the RTI response confirmed what she had said all along, that her office was first alerted to the child safety issue the week before she was told. "This RTI should now put a stop to the opposition's false claim that I was aware of the unassessed notifications prior to August 17," she said.
Opposition Leader Bryan Green is urging the Premier to sack Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma over child protection crisis on the North-West.
THE Liberals have been accused of a high-level, calculated cover-up of a serious child protection crisis on the North-West.
Opposition Leader Bryan Green is urging the Premier to sack Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma over the failure, or force her to apologise.
Ms Petrusma has consistently stated she knew nothing of 151 previously ignored child safety alerts until August 17.
However, the opposition says Right to Information documents confirm beyond doubt the minister's office knew at least five days earlier.
Mr Green said that under parliamentary convention, when a minister's office knows something, so does the minister.
Labor asked for all correspondence relating to the crisis between the department and minister's office, from when the agency first found out on July 27 and when the problem was finally made public.
They were told 127 documents related to their response, but the contents were all blocked from public release.
The response confirmed two emails about the crisis were sent from the department to the minister's office on August 12 and 13 for "internal briefing information of a minister".
Mr Green said either Ms Petrusma misled Parliament or staff deliberately withheld information from her.
The Premier resisted Labor's calls to dump his minister, saying Ms Petrusma took full responsibility for the failure and was working to fix a broken child safety system.
Mr Green said the response set a dangerous precedent.
"Effectively, what he has told the state of Tasmania is that if there is a disaster in anyone's portfolio, as long as the staff don't tell the minister, it's OK," he said.
"Someone needs to take responsibility for the failure of the community's most vulnerable people."
Ms Petrusma said the RTI response confirmed what she had said all along, that her office was first alerted to the child safety issue the week before she was told.
"This RTI should now put a stop to the opposition's false claim that I was aware of the unassessed notifications prior to August 17," she said.
