Redlands-based MP Amanda Stoker has faced five Question Time attacks over frontline burnout, worker pay, forensic disability outings and an alleged confidentiality deed involving residential care providers.
Queensland’s newest Child Safety Minister Amanda Stoker has faced an immediate five-pronged Opposition assault in Parliament, with Labor demanding answers on worker burnout, wages and conditions, community safety and transparency in residential care.
The Oodgeroo MP was put under pressure in a tense Question Time exchange only days after taking over the demanding families, disability services and child safety portfolios.
First came a call from Labor’s Meaghan Scanlon for Ms Stoker to table her department’s Working for Queensland survey results amid reports child safety officers are burning out.
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Ms Stoker said she wanted workers in the “difficult, challenging and important field” to be valued, respected and supported.
But she did not directly commit to tabling the survey.
Instead, she turned the heat back on Labor, claiming 91 temporary child safety positions had been left set to disappear under the former government.
“Who’s got those people’s back? Who’s got those child safety workers’ support? We back them in; we make them permanent,” Ms Stoker said.
She said the Crisafulli Government had committed to a 20 per cent increase in child safety officers by 2028.
The pressure did not let up.
Mansfield MP Corrine McMillan then asked whether Ms Stoker would join child safety workers rallying outside Parliament House for better pay and conditions.
The question followed a brief chamber flare-up, with the Speaker warning the Manager of Opposition Business, Springwood MP Mick de Brenni, over alleged gestures towards the public gallery as security monitored the situation.
Ms Stoker again did not say whether she would attend the rally but said her office had already contacted the Together Union and planned to work constructively with it.
“They deserve to know they’re dealing with a government that’s prepared to engage with them in good faith,” she said.
Woodridge MP Cameron Dick then asked whether Ms Stoker would release a list of community facilities that forensic disability clients — whom he described as “sex offenders” — were approved to visit on day trips.
The question followed alarm over a forensic disability client absconding from a supervised department visit to an Ipswich PCYC earlier this week.
Ms Stoker said the question misunderstood the legal framework governing forensic disability services.
She said the service dealt with people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities who had been accused of serious offences and found to be of unsound mind or unfit to stand trial.
“That means they don’t actually have a conviction, for instance,” she said.
Ms Stoker said the Mental Health Court or Mental Health Review Tribunal determined the conditions under which clients were managed, while the independent Director of Forensic Disability oversaw service arrangements.
McConnel MP Grace Grace doubled down in a fourth question, asking when the Minister would release departmental advice about day trips for people she described as sex offenders.
Ms Stoker did not offer a timetable or commit to releasing that advice.
Instead, she said there was no departmental “tour guide trip” taking clients around the community, and repeated that arrangements were set through the court and tribunal process before being implemented by the independent service.
The Minister said she had sought a report from the Director of Forensic Disability about how similar incidents would be managed safely, what lessons would be learned and what processes would change.
“If it were my decision, Mr Speaker, I would say, ‘Let’s not go to a gym supervised in the community. Let’s just put a treadmill in the facility and you can do what you need to do in there,’” she said.
“I’m not comfortable with a situation in which people who present a significant enough risk that they need to be in this situation are able to go out into the community.”
The final question came from Waterford MP Shannon Fentiman, who said she was tabling what she described as a leaked confidentiality deed for residential care providers from the Minister’s department.
Ms Fentiman asked whether the document prohibited providers from taking legal action against the department.
Ms Stoker asked to see the document before responding.
“Can I have a look at the document before I deal with the question?” she said.
“A 20-page document on my feet — that is very generous.”
She did not immediately confirm or deny whether the deed contained a clause preventing providers from taking legal action.
Instead, Ms Stoker accused Labor of trying to construct a narrative of secrecy around residential care, saying the Government had pushed for greater transparency through the child safety Commission of Inquiry and its reform agenda.
“We have done more to bring into the sunshine the reality of the difficult lives these young people have faced under a decade of those opposite,” she said.
Ms Stoker said the Government had released its first implementation update and would continue reforms to improve outcomes for children.
For Ms Stoker, it was a bruising early test in one of the State Government’s most difficult portfolios and a clear sign Labor intends to keep the blowtorch trained on the new minister.
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