Jay Weatherill says the history of child protection legislation is “littered with unintended consequences”, and insists his ministerial legacy was to spearhead a move “towards removal of children in circumstances where they’re at risk”.

Last week, his Labor cabinet resolved a general principle “that the interests of the child should always be the first and foremost consideration” in public policy and application.

That the Government should have to reinforce this point is noteworthy in itself, given the embattled Education and Child Development Department’s motto: “Children and Young People are at the centre of everything we do.”

For Weatherill though, the principle was a re-statement of one he enshrined into legislation a decade earlier, when as Families and Communities Minister he instituted a major review of the state’s Children’s Protection Act 1993.

“A very strong provision of the (original 1993) act was that things should be done in a way that essentially privileges the family,” he told InDaily.

“In my view, family was being privileged over the safety of children.

“We removed that … the very first subject of the act that we introduced was keeping children safe from harm.”

Indeed, the first version of the act opens with the objective that it is “founded on the principles that the primary responsibility for a child’s care and protection lies with the child’s family and that a high priority should therefore be accorded to supporting and assisting the family to carry out that responsibility”.

While the primary principle in dealing with children was that “the safety of the child is to be the paramount consideration”, it was noted that “serious consideration must, however, be given to the desirability of keeping the child within his or her family” and “not withdrawing the child unnecessarily from their familiar environment”.

This was the principle that seemed to underpin a series of child protection failures in the brief life of Chloe Valentine, who died in the care of her drug-abusing, neglectful mother Ashlee Polkinghorne in 2012. This month’s coronial inquiry recommendations emphasised a strong cultural shift towards removal of children from incapable parents, suggesting the state’s adoption provisions be significantly broadened – a principle with which Weatherill’s cabinet agreed.

But the Premier insists this was a cultural shift he set into law with his 2006 redrafting of the Children’s Protection Act. The primary objectives were completely re-written, highlighting the need “to ensure that all children are safe from harm”.

While the 2006 act recognised “the family as the primary means of providing for the nurture, care and protection of children”, it also recognised that “every child has a right to be safe from harm” and to be cared for “in a safe and stable family environment”.

“Or,” it continued, “if such a family environment cannot for some reason be provided, in some alternative form of care in which the child has every opportunity that can be reasonably provided to develop to his or her full potential”.

“Properly understood, the amendments were actually a move towards removal of children in circumstances where they’re at risk, and not having some notion of family over-riding, if you like, the notion of children being kept safe from harm,” Weatherill said.

So what went so wrong in the case of Chloe Valentine? Why was the principle of maintaining her in the custody of her mother adhered to, evidently even above that of her own welfare?

“The truth is, on-the-ground social workers are always trying to work out what’s best for the child,” Weatherill said.

“There were shocking errors of judgement made in this case, but that’s what they’re always trying to do.”

He said there had been “wild shifts in the pendulum” when it came to the principles underlying child protection, and that while the swing away from the sanctity of the family unit had begun on his watch, Coroner Mark Johns “is suggesting it needs to go further”.

“We agree in principle with that,” Weatherill said.

According to the Premier, this fraught area of public policy is one “littered with unintended consequences”.

“This is the history of child protection.”

As such, he defended the evident haste with which the Coroner’s recommendations were adopted, saying many of the changes were already in train.

“The Chloe Valentine case had been going on a long time…We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that case,” he said.

However, he maintained the Coroner had not grasped the implications of Section 20 of the Act, an oversight he is diplomatically pinning on his embattled chief executive Tony Harrison.

“Our submissions were, frankly, not up to scratch …We didn’t assist the coroner in understanding (the Act),” he said.

In fact, he insists, “we routinely carry out drug assessments as part of Section 20(1)”.

“That’s part of cases to be taken to the Youth Court for the removal of children.

“I don’t think it’s accurate to say we don’t want to separate children from drug abusing parents; the over-arching thing is children should be kept safe from harm.”

Last week, now-Senator Nick Xenophon told InDaily he was devastated to realise it was his own amendment to the Children’s Protection Act that the Coroner had singled out as having been ignored in the case of Chloe Valentine.

The Hansard from the 2005 parliamentary debate of the amendment records the late Terry Roberts as telling Xenophon: “We would not like to see the heavy hand of the state interfere in removing children from parents.”

But Weatherill says: “I don’t think, with all due respect to Terry, that represented the position we actually had.”

He said Xenophon’s amendments were derived from his then-close relationship with DrugBeat founder Ann Bressington, who was later his running mate and was elected to state parliament before the pair dramatically fell out.

“He was driving very hard for mandatory drug treatment; that was the original amendment, which we resisted,” Weatherill said.