A board of inquiry into how Canberra's child protection agencies handle family violence will be headed by former director-general of the NSW Justice Department Laurie Glanfield, Attorney-General Simon Corbell said on Monday.
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Mr Corbell has established a full royal-commission-style board of inquiry following the death of Bradyn Dillon, 8, at his Gungahlin home last week. His father, Graham Dillon, 37, has been charged with his murder.
The investigation has been set up under the Inquiries Act, giving Mr Glanfield the power to subpoena documents and witnesses. But Mr Corbell said he did not envisage public hearings, with Mr Glanfield given the extensive powers so that he could access protected and sensitive information.
Mr Corbell said Bradyn's death was "tragic and very very disturbing", and while Mr Glanfield would not investigate the specifics of Bradyn's death, which are before the courts, it was important to learn lessons from the case.
His brief was to look at the wider issue of how family violence is handled by ACT authorities.
A key question was whether ACT agencies were able to receive and share information between each other and with other states and territories and to what extent they did. The investigation would take in child protection, housing, health, education and other agencies, along with community organisations.
"We don't anticipate public hearings or any other elements such as you would normally see in a judicial inquiry," Mr Corbell said. "This is not a judicial inquiry but it does have significant powers to be able to access information that might otherwise be confidential."
Mr Corbell would not be drawn on what went wrong in the case of Bradyn Dillon, but he said the family had "engaged with ACT government agencies in the lead up to this young boy's death" and there were "enough surrounding circumstances of the system's response to Bradyn Dillon and his family to suggest that we need to look closely at how well our agencies are performing".
"We have seen in the last week a tragic death in our community," he said. "A young boy has died in the family home. And this is an incident which has shocked many in our community and I think it is appropriate that we look very closely at how effectively ACT government agencies are working together to collaborate and to help keep children safe in the family environment."
Mr Glanfield will report by April 22.
