Opposition Leader Steven Marshall has denied playing politics on the Premier’s push to wind back mandatory child protection reporting, despite conceding it was his idea to refer the concept to the Nyland Royal Commission.

InDaily revealed in June that Premier Jay Weatherill believed South Australia had “a real problem” with mandatory notification, which he said had resulted in one in four children being subject to a report.

At the time, Marshall also confirmed he had “asked the Premier to consider a joint approach to the Royal Commission regarding our notification systems in SA, and any opportunities for improvement”.

But the Premier repeated his concerns yesterday on Adelaide radio, prompting Marshall to denounce any push to scale back the current system as “completely unfathomable”

“I found his comments quite frightening,” Marshall told FIVEaa this morning.

However, when asked by InDaily to confirm he had asked the Premier to raise mandatory reporting with Justice Margaret Nyland, whose Royal Commission is investigating how the child protection system can be improved, Marshall said: “Yeah, absolutely.”

“We certainly supported the referral of this matter to the royal commission,” he said.

But, he insisted: “I’ve never said I’m for reducing mandatory reporting.”

The seeds for the review, though, were sewn following Marshall’s study tour to Oxfordshire in the UK, where he noted they did not have a mandatory reporting regime.

“I noted that in the UK they don’t have mandatory reporting and some of the interest groups had suggested we look at it … and my suggestion was we approach the Royal Commission to look at it,” he said.

He said he proposed this during an “impromptu meeting” with Weatherill, and “that was the extent of the two minute conversation”.

“We certainly wouldn’t support any scaling back whatsoever without thorough investigation by the Royal Commission,” he insisted.

“I raised the issue based on what was happening in the UK and expressions the private sector made about resources going into that narrow area, but hand on my heart we’ve never advocated for scaling back of mandatory reporting … we’re alarmed the Government has reached that opinion outside of the Royal Commission.”

Asked whether he would support such a measure if recommended by Justice Nyland, Marshall said he “can’t predetermine what our position will be”.

“It’s not that we won’t accept (recommendations), it’s that we’ll look at the recommendations and form our position thereafter,” he said.

“The Premier should be very careful when he wants to imply that we’re lock-step… Clearly they’ve arrived at a position (but) it’s not Liberal Party policy.”

Weatherill told InDaily that a “change of this magnitude requires bipartisan support to be successful”.

“I had understood that Steven Marshall was open to rethinking our system of mandatory reporting,” he said.

“It would be disappointing if a cheap one-liner on the evening news was placed above reasoned debate about reform of this importance.”