Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I note the minister’s comments in his response regarding Indigenous communities. I ask why it is that when there are unproven allegations of child abuse in Indigenous communities we have funding cut off to communities, administrators appointed and a large number of statements made across the media nationally, yet when we have proven reports of massive child abuse at levels described as ‘sickening’ by the Queensland Chief Justice and a report in today’s West Australian of 181 deaths of children known to be at risk in WA since 2002 all we get from the federal government are general comments about how nobody else is doing anything. Why isn’t the federal government going to live up to its commitment that it will make this a national priority and actually show some leadership on this most crucial of issues?