Parents who have been convicted of killing, seriously harming or endangering the life of a child will automatically have future children removed from them at birth if legislation passes through South Australia’s parliament.
The legislation, introduced on Wednesday afternoon, comes in response to 21 recommendations made by coroner Mark Johns in April following the inquest into the death of four-year-old Chloe Valentine.
Valentine died from severe head injuries in 2012 after she was made to repeatedly ride and crash a motorcycle over the course of three days in the backyard of her Adelaide home.
Valentine’s mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne, and her then partner, Benjamin McPartland, were jailed after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
The coroner recommended the Child Protection Act be amended to allow the removal of a child born to someone previously convicted for manslaughter by criminal neglect of a child, and would make South Australia the first jurisdiction with such legislation.
There could be exemptions in some cases, the recommendation said, for example if one of the parents had no previous convictions.
But the legislation before parliament goes further than the coroner’s report, in that the law would also apply to those convicted of causing a child serious harm.
South Australia’s deputy premier and attorney-general, John Rau, told ABC radio on Wednesday the extra provision was included because “murder and manslaughter cases are probably just very unlucky versions of criminal neglect”.
“It strikes me that even if they’re guilty of criminal neglect of a child, that’s bad enough,” Rau said.
Guardianship of the child would fall to the relevant minister, Rau said.
Rosemaria Flaherty, a PhD candidate at the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia said any measures with potential to save the life of a child were worth examining.
But she said the “devil will be in the detail” as to how effective the measures were.
“For example it can be very difficult to monitor the reproductive habits of someone charged with these offences, and we also must be careful these measures don’t prevent people from disclosing pregnancies and mean they become completely off the radar of services,” she said.
While similar legislation had been introduced in New Zealand, no evaluation had taken place to examine its effectiveness, Flaherty said.
Protecting children required more than legislation, she said.
“It requires a well-resourced child protection system and strongly coordinated services that come into contact with children,” she said.
