The Child Abuse Scandal in Australia:
“Why are government authorities who are charged with protecting children and given
budgets running to billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to do so, rarely held accountable
when at-risk children are left without help until they are physically broken sexually
degraded or dead.” In 2006, 84 children known to the Department of Community Services
died in NSW alone. In 2004 72 such children died.
The Australian17 July 2006
“In Western Australia, 57 children have died in the past three years despite the Department being warned about allegations of abuse.”
The Weekend Australian
2/3 September 2006
“The NSW Ombudsman found that 96 of 104 deaths (in NSW) were reviewable because the child or one of their siblings had been subject to a report to DOCS within three years of
their deaths. In the ACT, according to Police, between 2000 and 2003 there were 46 deaths
of children and at least 14 of them were unexplained. It is time that the number of
instances in which the death of children has escaped scrutiny and in which abuse was
potentially a contributing factor) should be recognised and acted on.”
2006 Report – The
National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse, Monash University
“Queensland public service incompetence (Child Safety Department) beggars belief.”
Editorial – The Australian 19 August 05
“... in NSW dozens of children, many known to be at high risk, die each year because authorities are too willing to accept promises by mothers that things will improve.”
Editorial – The Australian 24 August 2006
“Children must be rescued from wicked parental neglect. A common theme (in the state departments) remains the wrong headed policy of keeping children with their natural parents at any cost. The rights of the parent must give way to the safety of the child and state governments must be accountable for the terrible things that happen because of their inaction.
Editorial – The Australian 24 August 06
There is ...”a powerful ideology among a new generation of social workers and lawyers that state intervention causes harm and a bad parent is always better than no parent at all. We are now so determined not to revictimise bad parents by taking their children away that we victimize their children instead.”
The Australian 12 July 2006
“At the heart of the matter is a system in which social workers and lawyers wrongly place abusive parents ahead of the precious children they are supposed to be nurturing. For decades the pervasive, ideological nonsense that any parent is better than no parent has infected the ranks of the welfare bureaucracy, with tragic consequences for numerous vulnerable babies and toddlers who are not removed from bad parents.”
The Weekend Australian
2/3 September 2006
“A bigger problem is the institutional culture within the child protection agencies which is, as one social worker told this paper, ‘determined not to revictimise bad parents by taking their children away’.”
Australian - Editorial 18 July 06 |
