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

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to that response.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

It is not overly common to take note of these responses but I wanted to do so not just because it was a response that I moved but because it was a motion that was eventually adopted by all sides of this chamber. The motion was passed during Child Protection Week, back in September, when we had significant debates in this chamber on this issue.

This is a follow-up response by the Attorney-General, Mr Ruddock, and I thank him for that. It is a reasonably comprehensive response—2½ pages—and I think it is appropriate, to indicate genuine seriousness of commitment to the original resolution that the Senate passed and the wider debates that the Senate conducted at the time about the importance of child protection, to note the response from the Attorney-General.

Just to refresh the minds of senators and those following this issue, the resolution of the Senate back on 7 September this year noted the importance of Child Protection Week, noted the repeated fundamental major failures by those agencies charged with the protection of children, urged the federal government to prioritise the encouragement of states and territories to develop uniform laws and strategies on child protection, expressed support for child protection to be made a national priority and called on all governments to urgently decide on ways to significantly reduce child abuse and neglect in Australia.

As people may recall, around that period of time—Child Protection Week and the lead-up to it—there were a range of reports in parliament and in the mainstream media around the country, of major failures by state and territory agencies charged with the protection of children. In some ways I guess it was a positive thing that the media took Child Protection Week seriously enough to draw attention to these continual problems and failures. But it is not, of course, something that only occurs around Child Protection Week. Indeed, just in the last week, in my own state of Queensland, more reports have come to light of the continuing major problems in the Department of Child Safety—problems with staffing, workloads and resourcing.

I draw attention to that, not to attack or score political points off the state governments of the day, but to reinforce just how difficult a problem this is. We are not going to be able to tackle it just by leaving it up to states and territories. We do—as the original resolution suggests—need to make child protection a priority.

The other point that I note from the minister’s response is that it is pleasing to see some attention being paid to this area by the federal government. The federal government rightly points out that this predominantly is the responsibility of individual state and territory governments. But it is precisely for that reason that I was keen to get the Senate to agree to a resolution that emphasised the need to make this issue a national one—and to make it a national priority—so that it is not just left up to individual state and territory governments. The national government, the national parliament and all of us at this level need to do more to draw attention to this issue and make it a priority.

This response from the minister points out that the federal government has provided approximately $10 million a year to fund a range of initiatives that have a strong prevention and early intervention focus. I acknowledge and welcome that but $10 million, when you are looking at the massive amount of child abuse, neglect and assault in our community, is not very much. In fact, it is very, very little. I know there is a lot spent at state level, but clearly, if you are looking at making it a national priority, it needs more resourcing than that.

I note the mention, in the response, of the National Child Protection Forum that was held in June this year, the aim of which was to identify a practical way forward in developing a national approach to child protection and to consider ways of maximising cooperation across levels of government and across borders. I would like to see more detail from the minister about what the results of that forum were.

I see that the minister has mentioned the aim of the forum. I would like to see what specific, concrete action will come out of that forum, because I think that is very important. As the letter says, the forum built on the work already being done through the Community Services Ministers Advisory Council to support and promote initiatives that focus on the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

There has been continuing focus in recent times—and, in an intermittent way, in previous times as well—on family violence and violence and abuse towards children in Indigenous communities. It is an issue that everybody—including, of course, Indigenous people themselves—acknowledges is a significant problem. And we do need to address that. But I think we need to acknowledge much more honestly that this is not some problem that is just an epidemic in Indigenous communities and not that much of a problem for the rest of us.

It is a serious problem throughout all communities in Australia—poor communities; rich communities; multicultural, high diversity communities; and monocultural, mostly white, Anglo-Saxon communities. Across Australia we have a major problem with extraordinarily high levels of child abuse and child neglect.

The other point to make is that in looking to where we target our resources, of course we need to deal with the consequences and to deal with children who are being harmed or who are at risk, but we really need to try and focus more attention on the start of the problem rather than just continually coming in part way through when things are already far too long down the track.

As much as we need to have greater government focus on this issue—better resourcing, greater attention and higher priority—child abuse is not an issue that governments can fix on their own. In a way it is a sign of our failure as a society, when we have such monumental levels of child abuse and neglect, that it is still a hidden issue. It is still an issue that we turn away from, an issue we are not properly willing to confront and to accept the enormity of it. A lot of that comes back to attitudes we have towards children themselves, the way children are portrayed and perceived, and the way people consider their relationships towards children. Unless we start rethinking our own attitudes towards children and our responsibilities as a society and as individuals, we are really not going to get on top of this. It is never going to be solved by having 10 times more social workers or 10 times more people in government agencies or in non-government agencies. Unless we can change attitudes and approaches, we will continue to have significant problems. That is frankly where we need to have more debate. It is a difficult and confronting issue but it is one we need to emphasise.

That can be part of the role of the national government. If we are going to make it a national priority, if the federal government is going to take leadership on this issue, as I continue to urge it to do, that is part of the role it can play, not just reinforcing funding at the service delivery end but national leadership on changing the way we deal with children, changing attitudes towards children and emphasising much more the responsibilities we have towards children.

It is worth noting, as Minister Ruddock’s response says, that the National Child Protection Forum, which I mentioned previously, was in response to a recommendation from the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs report into protecting vulnerable children. I thank the government for taking up that aspect of the report. As that report emphasised, the cost of abuse and neglect of children is one that all society bears for decades. A damaged child, a harmed child, in many cases becomes a harmed adult. The consequences of that to the wider society can play out in many ways, whether it is the expense of the criminal justice system and imprisonment or other damaged relationships and other human harm and suffering flowing on from that. It is an issue which needs much more attention. I appreciate the response from the minister, which goes some way to doing that. Frankly, I think there is a lot more to do to meet the spirit of the resolution that all parties in the Senate agreed to two months ago.

Question agreed to.