Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a response from the New South Wales Minister for Community Services, Ms Meagher, to a resolution of the Senate of 18 October 2006 concerning child protection.

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

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the response by the New South Wales Minister for Community Services, Ms Reba Meagher.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is a response to a resolution that this Senate passed unanimously—eventually, after some toing and froing—in October last year regarding child protection. There have been a number of responses that have been tabled in the Senate from various state and territory governments since then. As the mover of that resolution, I am pleased that it is receiving responses.

The aim of the resolution—which obviously the Senate agreed to, because they adopted it—was to try and put the issue of child protection above party politics and to try and reinforce the message that this issue needs national leadership and stronger attention from all levels of government. It followed on from previous resolutions that I had moved in this place over the years. Indeed, one of them was based on the motion that was generated from the national conference of the Australian Local Government Association—an indication that, at local council level as well, there is a recognition of the need to look for more ways of addressing issues of child protection, child abuse and child assault.

Without going into the details of this particular response, I want to take the opportunity to remind the Senate of our collective expression, in October last year, of the need for child protection to have stronger national leadership and national attention. We have had a lot of talk in recent times—in fact, going back quite a long time—about the water crisis around the country and the need for stronger action at the national level. We have had clear action from the Prime Minister, deciding that he is going to take more national leadership and national control of that issue. Every issue is different, so I am not trying to suggest every response should be a parallel one. If we are talking about the water crisis, as we rightly should, it is appropriate to apply the word ‘crisis’ to the situation. The label ‘crisis’ is overused, and sometimes misused, and that devalues it, but it is certainly appropriate in that case. I believe that the word ‘crisis’ can also be accurately, and quite reasonably and dispassionately, applied to the situation regarding child protection and child abuse and neglect around Australia. It is an absolute crisis.

It is a monumental challenge. It is an issue that has no single answer or any easy answers. It is an issue that goes to the core of the fabric of our society. It is not just a matter of tougher law enforcement or a different bunch of laws. It is a matter of major changes in social attitudes and social behaviour. That sort of thing is never easy, and it cannot just be done by governments. But it can be improved significantly by having much greater recognition at national level and much greater leadership and priority given to it at national level. We cannot give priority to everything or, by definition, nothing is of priority. But I believe this is one amongst a small number of areas which do need more priority and which could really benefit from national leadership.

I do not just mean spending a bucketload of money. In some respects, a bucketload of money wrongly applied in this area would not only not help at all; it could, potentially, make things worse by diverting attention away from where things need to go. But I do believe we need to be continually reminding ourselves that this is a major crisis and the costs to our community—economic and social, long term—are monumental.

We cannot just say, ‘It’s a state government issue,’ or ‘It’s a family issue,’ or ‘It’s a community issue.’ It is an issue to which all of us need to address greater attention. So I welcome the response from the New South Wales minister, as well as those previous responses.

I know state governments are trying to do things. It is not an easy issue. Child protection workers are in an invidious position a lot of the time where they are inevitably found to have done the wrong thing, whichever way they jump. But more needs to be done. And, again, that does not necessarily mean more money, although sometimes it does. It does mean greater attention, greater focus and greater work for all of us at all levels of society if we are really going to remove this issue from the crisis it is in. There is no doubt that, at the current state of play, that is where it is.

Question agreed to.