April Lawrie, South Australia's first commissioner for Aboriginal children has extra powers in 2021
April Lawrie, a former government bureaucrat from the Mirning and Kokatha peoples of the state’s far west coast, was appointed South Australia’s first commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people in 2018 after a request from Aboriginal organisations.
South Australia’s first commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people, April Lawrie, was given the powers of a royal commission to investigate “pressing systemic issues” facing Indigenous youth – two months before the end of her three-year term in 2021.
Besides finally enshrining the commissioner’s role in state law, Lawrie was given the powers to conduct formal inquiries and to advise government ministers, state authorities and other non-government bodies on matters relating to Aboriginal children.
Premier and Aboriginal affairs minister Steven Marshall in 2018 appointed Lawrie, a former government bureaucrat from the Mirning and Kokatha peoples of the state’s far west coast, after a request from Aboriginal organisations. The state government controversially hastened her appointment via a clause in the Constitution Act, restricting her ability to conduct inquiries or formal investigations.
Lawrie said if her term were extended, she would launch a “well-considered, measured inquiry” into the government’s adherence to the Aboriginal child placement principle, requiring authorities to ensure Indigenous children remained in the care of their family or cultural group. This would include investigating the rate that the state government’s children protection department removed Aboriginal newborns from the their mothers at birthing hospitals and placed them into the care of non-Aboriginal carers. Lawrie also wanted to look at how often the department separated Aboriginal siblings when they were removed from their birth parents.
The state government gave the office of the Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner a funding boost of $500,000 in its budget – increasing to $1 million each year from 2022. Lawrie also got $616,000 to move into a stand-alone office, after sharing commissioner for children and young peopleHelen Connolly’s office since her appointment.
