Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Those people who have those attitudes shall now control the power to take away a child from a young mother. To you, they may be terrible mothers. To you, you may have to rescue the children. That was what was said in the old days of the stolen children. They said constantly that we had to rescue the children from people and the very unacceptable way in which they were living. But I know one of these young mothers—I went out with the daughter for a tiny little while. She pulled herself up and became a fully qualified and fully trained nurse and the director of nursing in a hospital. She became a leading member in the community and married the local dentist. She was tremendously successful. But you would have placed that mother under some sort of tutelage—and I use that word with aforethought.

One of my good friends was brought up by a teenage mother, and I am sure she would have been under this tutelage. He is one of the finest men I know. His son is a doctor. He has been a great leader. He has been a foreman with the main roads department. He is a great success story. There was another case from my home town. There was a little girl who could not have possibly have had a worse upbringing. But she is a very successful mother and has a very successful family. She loved her mother, even though her mother was not a good mother. Her son played football with my son. I think in six years they did not lose a game by less than 40 points. A brilliant footballer! He is a trained electrician now with a number of kids and a very happy family. So what you might see as a woman who needs to be controlled by a social worker, some of us would see as a little hero.

Sadly, the statistics in this country show that in 10 years, when I, the first of the baby boomers, die, there will be more deaths than births in this country. Why are women not having children in this country? It is because, as my daughters have said to me, if you are a mother and you want to stay at home and look after your kids, you are regarded as a second-class citizen. You really are socially ostracised and isolated. I am proud to say that most of my daughters have become stay-at-home mothers in spite of that and in spite of the fact that they were all on very big incomes. They were very successful people and they had to sacrifice a lot of income to take that decision. In the short time left to me, I cannot help but say that there are very strong racial overtones in this bill. Putting on my blackfella hat rather than my whitefella hat, I say that I resent very, very strongly the implications of this legislation. There will be very great sorrow and pain for the little mothers, who have been great heroes as far as I am concerned but who have committed the simple sin of wanting to have a child and be a mother. For that they will be punished by being put under the control of the social workers, whose tender mercies I have outlined here tonight. They are just some of the many things that are in the files in my office. (Time expired)

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