AUSTRALIA
Australian

MICHAEL OWEN
SA Bureau ChiefAdelaide
@mjowen

VERITY EDWARDS
ReporterAdelaide
@VerityEdwardsau

An initial $200 million over four years will be spent by the Weatherill government to begin implementing wideranging reforms based on 260 recommendations of a 850-page final report of a royal commission into South Australia’s troubled child protection system.

Premier Jay Weatherill has today apologised for failings amid findings one in four children in the state is subject of some form of notification to authorities.

“It is true that we’ve failed … the commissioner doesn’t apportion blame,” Mr Weatherill said.

In her report, Commissioner Margaret Nyland said problems with child protection systems were not unique to South Australia, although the state had the “dubious distinction” of caring for a higher proportion of infants and young children on a rotational basis, by commercial shift workers, than anywhere else and relied on this form of…