Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, Mr Deputy President, thank you for your assistance this evening; I do appreciate it.

The date of 28 October was officially recognised as 'Day for Daniel'. Most of us in the Australian community have heard of Daniel Morcombe and the loss, horror and grief that his family suffered, which became public knowledge over the last years since Daniel did not come home when he went shopping on Sunday, 7 December 2003. No-one knew what happened to Daniel, but we found out in the last couple of months that he will never be coming home. So when everyone gathered on 28 October at his local area of Woombye, in the beautiful Sunshine Coast, there was a very special feel about this year's walk for Daniel.

I have been fortunate enough to attend a number of these with many, many people who have gathered together in that region. The way that the family of Bruce and Denise Morcombe have chosen to ensure that Daniel's memory is kept alive is to ensure that we have a regular commemoration about the need to keep child safety on the agenda. They have generously opened up their hearts and their lives to so many of us so that we can have this focus, so that we can remember their son and so that we can be aware of the need for immediate action across our community to ensure that all children are safe.

When we gathered this year there was a special poignancy because we knew that police action was underway because Daniel would not be returning. Over 2,000 people gathered at the area to take part in the walk for Daniel. There was a sea of red; it has now become the signature colour for this campaign. Not only in Nambour and the Woombye area, which is Daniel's local home, but across Australia, this process of remembrance and hope is being carried out each year on 28 October. Mr Deputy President, you know that in this place tomorrow we are having our own Day for Daniel. The family has accepted that, because of the vagaries of our sitting pattern, this was the nearest day we could do it. We are hoping that parliamentarians, staff members and visitors to this place will be wearing red tomorrow to maintain this vigil, this acceptance and also this message to the whole community that child safety must be an absolute priority. Somehow in the Senate it really works because we have a room of red to remember Daniel tomorrow.

We need to ensure that the wonderful work that the family has started is maintained. After Daniel's disappearance, Bruce and Denise Morcombe established the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, with two objectives: to educate children regarding their personal safety so that they know what is safe and they take their own personal control, and to assist victims of crime, particularly where it involves children. The foundation was established partly to keep Daniel's memory alive but also to have this ongoing awareness program to stop such events ever affecting any other families or communities.

Since Daniel's disappearance, the foundation has introduced many programs to help children everywhere and to keep this issue of child safety at the forefront of our minds. Some of the achievements of the foundation to date, apart from the way that it has drawn people together—and that is one of the most encouraging signs, that people know the story, they want to be involved and our memories are twigged when this happens—are more concrete, such as a DVD which has been made for distribution to schools to teach children about their personal safety and so that they see it as part of their daily lives. So far over 13,000 DVDs have been distributed through Australia, and these can be readily obtained by going onto the website.

Also working with the wonderful University of the Sunshine Coast and the Queensland Police Service, there has been developed an internet safety program called Being Safety Smart, with a comprehensive 'feeling safe' animated interactive program, which is due to be released late this year or early next year. Also there has been a pledge by the foundation of over $125,000 to support young victims of crime. The Daniel Morcombe Foundation is working with the Queensland government to develop a Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Program, which will become a core component of the Queensland school curriculum.

The Queensland government announced in conjunction with Bruce and Denise Morcombe a package that funded a paid ambassadorial role for Mr and Mrs Morcombe to deliver a child safety package or message using Daniel's story as a core theme in schools. I know that we said last Friday at the walk that the family has already begun visiting schools all across Queensland. Having those parents come and sit down with the school community and tell their story, tell the fact that a young man, 12 years old, could leave his home on a quiet afternoon and never come home has a special impact, and it also makes sure that children get the message that they need to be in control of their own safety.

There is also the development of a child safety package targeted at prep to year 9, the core years of youth, for inclusion in our school curriculum, and the state support and promotion of additional fundraising activities for the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, such as the Day for Daniel. Although many communities have already taken up the challenge to have their own remembrances and their own sea of red to remember Daniel, we expect that this will widen and that, when people become aware of the issues, they will want to take part, and there will be some support from the Queensland government for that.

The Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, who was there with us on Friday walking and dressed in red stated that she intended to lobby for the child safety package to become part of the national curriculum, because this message does not stop at state boundaries. We need to ensure that the issues of child safety are clearly there for everybody. As Denise Morcombe said on Friday, this year's walk was particularly poignant in that everyone now knew that Daniel would not be coming home, but his message remains real for all of us.

The matter of Daniel's disappearance and the charge is now before the courts, so we cannot talk about that. We also need to remember that the court process must proceed and the individual who has been charged has not been found guilty. So I think there is another message there for people who have been talking openly about this process: there has been no conviction. I think it is important to put that on record.

What happened to Daniel and his family was a real tragedy. However, out of that has grown, I think, a community response and a recognition that what happened should not have happened. We will probably never know exactly what happened to Daniel Morcombe on that afternoon, but what has happened since then is that families across Queensland have begun to talk about the issues of child safety in their family homes and most particularly in the school community, where kids have the chance to ask questions, to talk to their school counsellors, to talk to their parents and teachers and to ask questions about how they can make themselves safe and what the danger signals are.

One of the wonderful things that has come out of this whole process has been the proactive, positive role of the Queensland police force. There has been a longstanding process in Queensland schools of Adopt a Cop schools, and that has been working with mixed results but mainly very positively. When we were there on Friday walking down the beautiful hill in that area around Woombye, I had never seen so many police gathered together. There was wonderful, positive interaction between the people who were doing the walk and the police who were maintaining vigilance. In that area we do have some speeding issues, so when we see police on that road we might not always be so excited to see them!

Nonetheless, on Friday we saw young people waving and calling out to the local police by name. They felt that safety and security. I think one of the core messages that has come out of this whole process has been the wonderful personal engagement of individual Queensland police and the whole structure of the Queensland police led by the commissioner, who was there with us again on Friday to say that the police are there to provide safety and advice, realistically for everyone to know that if they are in trouble, if there is fear, they can turn to their local police person. I think one of the really positive things has been to regain that trust and to ensure that that message is clear.

Tomorrow in this place I expect that we will see lots of red, and that is important. But we now need to have this entrenched in our parliamentary calendar, and I know that will happen, so that we expect on the sitting day closest to 28 October that there will be an established Day for Daniel in this place. The community expects that we as their representatives will maintain the message of child safety. We will do everything we can within legislation at both the Commonwealth and the state level—and these Days for Daniel are being celebrated and acknowledged in state parliaments as well. We can provide the legislative basis to ensure that there are laws around the protection of children and effective policing. We need to lead by example to show that we care for our community and we care for our families, and we will share with the Morcombe family their remembrance of their son Daniel.