by Matilda Bawden (Human Rights Advocate / Citizen Journalist)
HOW MANY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES DOES IT TAKE TO DESTROY ONE ADVOCATE?
To the Chief Executive
Department of Human Services
South Australia
and
The Central Assessment Unit (CAU)
Screening Unit
Department of Human Services
27 August 2026
Dear Chief Executive and Central Assessment Unit,
An Open Letter to the Department of Human Services, Central Assessment Unit
Re: Preliminary Working With Children Prohibition Notice — RRN-01176820
Apparently one South Australian government agency coming after my professional credentials was not enough.
Now we have five!
On 10 August 2026, I received an extraordinary 13-page document from the Department of Human Services’ Central Assessment Unit (CAU) advising me that it has formed a preliminary view that I pose an “unacceptable risk to children.”
This came less than four months after the very same Central Assessment Unit conducted a Working With Children Check and, on 24 April 2026, determined that I was NOT PROHIBITED from working with children.
What happened in those few months?
According to the Department, it received “new information”.
And where has the case against me now come from? Which agency initiated the “new information” exchange after I was cleared on 24 April 2026?
The Department’s own document identifies information supplied by:
· South Australia Police.
· Department for Child Protection.
· Adult Safeguarding Unit.
· Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner.
· South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Five arms of the South Australian State have now been assembled into a single document to construct a case that I am somehow a prospective danger to children.
And after years of challenging government agencies over the treatment of vulnerable South Australians, in guardianship, in institutional detention, concerning informed consent, regarding disability rights and government accountability, I am now told that even my tendency to “question or challenge the status quo” is a relevant “variable” in determining whether I should be permitted to work with children.
Seriously?
At what point does regulatory scrutiny become institutional persecution?
At what point does information-sharing between government agencies become the construction of a government dossier against a troublesome advocate?
And at what point does somebody in authority finally ask, “What exactly has Matilda Bawden done to a child?”.
Because after reading thirteen pages supposedly establishing that I present an “unacceptable risk to children”, that remarkably simple question remains unanswered.
Most significantly, not one parent, legal guardian or identified first-hand witness is said in this Notice to have complained that I harmed, abused, neglected or otherwise endangered a child through my relationship with that child, my conduct around that child, or my advocacy for that child or their parent/guardian. Not even one!
Instead, I am confronted with reports, referrals, institutional opinions, adult safeguarding allegations, adult guardianship proceedings, an HCSCC prohibition order, police information that resulted in no charge, and allegations which the CAU itself acknowledges are unsubstantiated and unproven.
If the Department possesses a complaint from a parent, guardian, child or first-hand witness alleging that I actually harmed a child, produce it.
Identify the child. Identify the alleged conduct. Identify when it occurred. Identify the person who witnessed it. Identify the harm allegedly caused and give me a proper opportunity to answer it.
Otherwise, the obvious question remains: WHAT CHILD HAVE I HARMED?
Let us begin with the obvious.
· Where is the child whom I have assaulted?
· Where is the child whom I have abused?
· Where is the child whom I have neglected?
· Where is the criminal conviction involving a child?
· Where is the charge?
· Where is the substantiated finding?
· Where is the judicial finding that I have harmed a child?
· Where is the established conduct from which a rational prediction can be made that I am likely to cause serious harm to a child in the future?
Instead, I am presented with a sprawling institutional collage extending back more than a decade.
· Allegations
· Reports
· Opinions
· Disputed characterisations
· Adult safeguarding matters
· NDIS disputes
· A COVID-era HCSCC prohibition order
· Adult guardianship proceedings
· My advocacy before SACAT, and apparently
· My troublesome habit of questioning authority.
These things have been placed into one enormous bureaucratic blender and poured out under the label: “UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO CHILDREN.”
That is not good enough! Where is the institutional accountability?
THE DEPARTMENT ADMITS THE CASE IS UNPROVEN
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of this document is that the Department itself acknowledges the weakness of significant parts of its evidentiary foundation.
The CAU expressly acknowledges that information obtained from DCP and the Adult Safeguarding Unit remains “unsubstantiated” and “unproven.”
It acknowledges that the SAPOL material has not proceeded to formal charge.
It acknowledges that the 2025-26 SACAT proceedings “were not an inquiry into [my] alleged conduct.”
Read that again!
Unsubstantiated.
Unproven.
No charge.
Not an inquiry into MY CONDUCT!
And yet these materials are collectively being used to contemplate stripping me of my Working With Children clearance.
This is apparently what passes for procedural fairness in South Australia in 2026.
AN ALLEGATION DOES NOT BECOME TRUE BECAUSE GOVERNMENT REPEATS IT
There is a sentence buried in this document which should disturb anyone concerned about administrative justice.
The CAU says: “The presence of these reports verifies the veracity of the related concerns.”
No. It does not. The existence of a report proves that a report exists. It does not prove that the allegation recorded in that report is true at all! And an allegation does not magically acquire evidentiary weight merely because it travels around government.
NDIA gives ASU allegation A. ASU picks up an allegation with DCP/OPA, which records allegation A. ASU reports allegation A to NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and other regulators (e.g., HCSCC, NDIS Fraud Unit). Agency number four records that agencies one, two and three have concerns about allegation A. We now have at least four records.
We do not have four pieces of independent evidence!
We may still have just one allegation.
This distinction should be elementary to any public authority exercising coercive power over another person’s livelihood and reputation.
Instead, bureaucratic repetition appears capable of becoming bureaucratic corroboration.
“POLICE SAID SO” IS NOT AN EVIDENTIARY ANALYSIS
In relation to one disputed incident, the CAU announces that it accepts the SAPOL account because: “police officers are a reliable and credible source of information.”
Really?
Not because the particular evidence has been independently tested.
Not because competing accounts have been examined.
Not because documentary evidence demonstrates that the police account is correct.
Police are believed because police are police.
That is not an assessment of evidence.
That is an institutional presumption.
Police officers can be mistaken.
Government officers can be mistaken.
Social workers can be mistaken.
Doctors can be mistaken.
Tribunal members can be mistaken.
Regulators can be mistaken.
That is precisely why procedural fairness must be seen to exist.
Further, I suspect Adult 2’s son [an adult himself at the time!] would beg to differ with your premise about Police, since Police are denying disclosure of critical documents to the son about the events on the date in question in your communication. Our recorded evidence shows that:
1) I called police to deal with an aggressive and distressed gentleman who was unable to cope with his caring duties while he was posing a risk/danger to his wife.
2) No statement or threat of any kind was made against me by Police regarding any risk of “trespass” at the time.
3) I was at the premises with Dr Kathleen Maros’s full knowledge and consent.
4) I left of my own volition after a conversation with police and providing them with all the information available to me at the time.
5) The son has already flagged the events on this day for investigation with the Crown Solicitor and he is considering possible further legal action against Police. Legal advice suggests an action against the State is compelling.
In fact, the events of that day precipitated a sequence of events that led directly to the death of Dr Kathleen Maros in State Care: https://substack.com/@matildabawden/p-168403761 .
So, contrary to the notion that “police officers are a reliable and credible source of information”, I’d suggest the police bungled badly on this occasion.
Importantly, the Police report gets even worse. A purported event reported by Police for 25th January 2023 provides no specifics. How am I supposed to respond with no particulars?
Did this incident concern an adult or child? Was a report made by an NDIS competitor? An NDIS provider poaching my clients? If it related to anything concerning NDIS services, those matters should have been reported:
a) Not reported to me
b) Not reported to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and/or
c) After “reporting”, there was no reason for any further investigation or follow up to answer, so I was never contacted.
WHO WROTE THIS DOCUMENT?
The covering correspondence bears only the first name “Jenna”, identified as a Senior Assessment Officer.
Jenna, odds are you did not write this document at all! I, therefore, require DHS to identify the author or authors of the 13-page Preliminary Notice and Reasons for Determination; every officer who materially contributed to its drafting; whether legal advice or drafting assistance was obtained; whether the Crown Solicitor’s Office was consulted or provided advice concerning this assessment; and whether any draft was provided to another government agency for comment before it was issued to me.
This matters because I am supposedly being invited to respond to the CAU’s preliminary reasoning. I am entitled to understand whose reasoning it actually is.
AND THEN WE ARRIVE AT MY “WORLDVIEW”
This is where the document moves from disturbing to extraordinary.
The CAU writes that my assessable information, “appears to have arisen in the context of a worldview that presents alternative ideas and reasoning that may question or challenge the status quo.”
What does that have to do with whether I am dangerous to children? Whose “status quo” are we measuring my “worldview” by?
What is my “worldview”?
I want to know whose “world view” I am supposed to be agreeing with! In fact, I want to know who actually even wrote this sentence into your correspondence, by name and title?
What “alternative ideas”? Which ideas are considered unacceptable? What “status quo” am I apparently insufficiently respectful of? Government? SACAT? The Public Advocate? SA Health? DCP? HCSCC?
That SACAT, OPA, ASU, HCSCC and other government authorities ought to be accountable and publicly transparent? That the same authorities ought to comply with the law? And since when did questioning the status quo become a variable in a statutory child-safety assessment?
Because I do question the status quo – constantly – and so should every regulatory authority!
I question government agencies when vulnerable people are being mistreated. I question hospitals when adults capable of expressing their wishes say they want to go home. I question guardianship systems, regulators, bureaucrats and tribunals. I question public officials exercising coercive power. I investigate, research, advocate and now I write and publish real-world experiences by real people, almost in real-time. The SA Government calls that the “Lived Experience”: https://www.chiefpsychiatrist.sa.gov.au/lived-experience .
And I will continue doing so!
That is not evidence that I am dangerous to children.
It is evidence that I am an advocate and dangerous to public officials who would prefer their conduct not be scrutinised, especially after they put people into nursing homes before their time, only to die alone and isolated in “State Care” months after they are removed from the loving care of their family members. I am a danger to Public Advocates who remove vulnerable people from their mothers when even three judges at the Full Supreme Court cannot identify the reason for the person’s removal and finding the reasons “unexplained”.
https://matildabawden.substack.com/p/a-system-in-crisis-why-the-michael
Clearly my criticism of South Australian government institutions has contributed heavily to this adverse assessment, and that is made abundantly clear in this correspondence.
Indeed, I document people’s Lived Experience so that Crown Law cannot gaslight the public of South Australia into thinking these human-interest stories are just “isolated cases”, “administrative anomalies”, “that was then; this is now”, “with the benefit of hindsight”, “unfortunate” cases…
WHEN DID ADVOCATING FOR ELDERLY PERSONS BECOME EVIDENCE OF DANGER TO CHILDREN?
A substantial component of this extraordinary document concerns my involvement in SACAT proceedings involving mature and elderly adults. Not a child!
The matters concerned capacity, an Advance Care Directive, an Enduring Power of Attorney, hospital discharge, guardianship and the person’s expressed opposition to residential aged care.
I advocated. I challenged. I filed material. I sought review. And somehow the DHS transforms my involvement in those proceedings into an alleged: “inability to adhere to policies, procedures, and guidelines put in place to protect the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable people, including children.”
There is a rather large, logical hole in the middle of that proposition.
Where are the children?
What established conduct concerning an elderly adult demonstrates that I present an unacceptable prospective risk of serious harm to a child?
What is the causal connection?
What is the evidentiary connection?
What is the reasoning?
Adding the words “including children” to the end of a sentence does not turn adult guardianship advocacy into child endangerment.
THE 2014 ABSURDITY
The Department reaches all the way back to 2014 to create a “Dirty File” full of nothingness.
It is alleged that a 14-year-old disclosed that she had been inappropriately touched by a neighbourhood resident. HOWEVER, that matter was reported to police and CARL and many other authorities at the time BY ME! I have copious proof of texts, emails and many also sent to Ministers, Shadow Ministers and Members of the SA Parliament proving that all of my best efforts to report were IGNORED BY THE STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA! In fact, that “child” reports she was never believed by the Police, so charges were never pursued!
Fortunately for me and the “child” in question, all of this was recorded by me in immense detail at the time, and should have been recorded by every authority which I had approached for help to protect that minor. Instead, the State left her in crisis and almost destitute. Some of those witnesses were even Members of the House of Assembly in the SA Parliament too.
The CAU then acknowledges something rather important. I was not dealing with the child in an employment capacity and therefore I was not legally required to make the mandatory notification upon which the Department now focuses.
The absurdity is therefore doubled: not only does CAU acknowledge that I was not legally obliged to make a mandatory notification in those circumstances – I say I nevertheless reported the matter to Police, CARL and numerous other authorities, and I have the contemporaneous records to prove it.
So let us understand this.
The Department acknowledges that I did not breach the statutory mandatory-reporting obligation. It nevertheless uses that event, twelve years later, as a reason for questioning whether I should now be allowed to work with children.
By what standard?
If there was no statutory obligation, identify the obligation I breached.
Identify its source. Identify the conduct required of me. Then explain how my conduct twelve years ago rationally predicts that I pose an unacceptable risk to children today.
THE CHILD IN THE WHEELCHAIR – HOW DOES ONE DISPROVE AN EVENT THAT NEVER HAPPENED?
Among the allegations now presented to me is a false allegation that I restrained a child in a wheelchair. I categorically deny it. This never happened!
Indeed, I am confronted with the almost impossible task of disproving an alleged event which I say simply did not occur.
How exactly does one prove that an alien spacecraft did not land in one’s front yard? That is the evidentiary absurdity created when an allegation is presented without sufficient particulars and the person accused is effectively expected to disprove it.
I suspect I know the identity of the child to whom this allegation may refer. If I am correct, I was never that child’s Support Worker. I did not provide his physical support. I did not push his wheelchair. I did not restrain him. I did not physically handle him. Ever!
In fact, I do not presently recall ever being out with this child while he was using his wheelchair.
There is another important distinction which the CAU’s vague use of the word “restrained” completely obscures.
The child had been recommended a wheelchair by an Occupational Therapist. Wheelchairs may be fitted with positioning and safety equipment, including seatbelts. The mere use of such equipment does not, without more, establish that somebody subjected a child to an unlawful or unauthorised restrictive practice.
If CAU is actually alleging the misuse of a regulated restrictive practice, then say so. Was the allegation one of physical restraint? Mechanical restraint? What device was supposedly used? By whom? For what purpose? Was it allegedly used to manage behaviour, prevent movement, provide postural support, or simply for ordinary safety?
Those distinctions matter. The NDIS restrictive-practices framework itself distinguishes regulated restraint from ordinary safety measures according to their purpose, context and use.
To keep reading: Matilda’s Substack