weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

23 Aug 2005 Child Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2635
sat there and I thought, ‘I’m not going to wear this for much longer.’ In the next half a minute she is
brushing another kid’s hair and she gave that child a lunging, too. She just smashed those kids across
the face. It got too much for me so I wound the window down and said, ‘Ma’am, I am sorry, but I have
just witnessed that.’ She said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were there.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter if I’m here or
not. I know it is your child, but if that is how you treat your child in public, how do you treat your child at
home?’
This is what we are up against. We do not know what happens to kids in some homes. We do not
know why it happens to kids. I have to say that it just rocks me to see people do that. Last Friday
morning I was at the Brisbane airport to catch the early flight to Longreach. A couple were there with
their little four-year-old. She was crying. I suppose she was tired because she had been dragged out of
bed at 4 o’clock to catch a plane. The mother raced over and grabbed her. She reefed her up and nearly
tore her arm out of the socket. A lot of other people standing in a line saw it. I thought, ‘Is this modernday
Queensland, 2005—the 21st century? Is this how people treat their children?’
I have four little grand-daughters. I am the most protective grandparent in the world. I think every
member of this House is protective of their children and cares about children. But I say to the minister
that he has a pretty tough portfolio. I know there has been a lot of criticism levelled at the minister about
it and he is going to cop a lot more criticism about it, too. I believe that some of the people who work for
the Department of Child Safety do not have the professional expertise to know precisely what their
charter is. This department was created to protect less than two per cent of the children of the state.
Whether they are in foster care or not in foster care, they are kids from dysfunctional families.
I know that we are debating the implementation of the third stage of the Crime and Misconduct
Commission’s report on child protection, but the thing that really gets to me is that every day people in
the department are confronted with the abuse of children in our state. We talk about 25 per cent of these
kids coming from Indigenous communities. The other 75 per cent of them come from non-Indigenous
communities. We should be looking after kids. I represent an area which has a high population of
Indigenous people. I know that those black kids are treated very fairly by their relatives and by other
people in their communities. I think that Indigenous people have a better recognition of family values
than do some of our white people. It appals me to think that 25 per cent of these abused kids are
Indigenous and 75 per cent of them are white. But I will say that in those Indigenous families the elder
women are the protectors. They are the ones who are doing a good job. They have reared their families,
but they see those kids in crisis. It comes back to substance abuse or alcohol abuse. Mr Deputy
Speaker, I have to say that this issue is the responsibility of all of us. I just hope and pray that, through
this legislation, we will get genuine outcomes and these kids will be protected, regardless of the
community they live in—whether they live in my electorate, your electorate or in one of the other 87
electorates throughout Queensland.
I get pretty emotional about this issue. I believe we should all be emotional about this issue. We
should also all be realistic about it. Will some kids have tucker in their bellies every day? Will they be
able to get up in the morning and put on clean clothes for the day? Will they be able to go to school and
play with other kids in a clean, happy environment? Mr Deputy Speaker, you know and I know that that
is not happening for some children in Queensland today. I hope, through this legislation, we will see
genuine outcomes and that will happen.
About 18 months ago—at about the time the Department of Child Safety was created—I learned
about a young lady who worked within the area of child safety. She had to go out into the far western
reaches of my electorate and bring back to Emerald a little infant to put into foster care. This child was
on the bottle. At various stages on the trip between Winton and Emerald this young lady had to pull up
and feed the child. These are some of the issues that our child safety workers are subjected to. That
lady was probably 20 years old. She probably did not have a child of her own. This issue goes back to
the training of people within the department who have to carry out these jobs. I know the pressures that
these people are under. It is an horrific job and it is one that all of us have to share. At the end of the day,
we have to be more realistic about how we go about fixing the problem. The minister referred in his
second reading speech to the—
... functions and powers of the Child Guardian...to a child’s birth about the risk of harm to that child after birth.
I really think that, first and foremost, we have to weigh up the rights that come with being a parent.
We have to monitor that very closely. The minister said the following in his second reading speech—
A new chapter 5A was inserted into the Child Protection Act 1999. It provides for information exchange between agencies that
provide services to children and families while ensuring confidentiality and the coordination of service delivery. Individuals who
share information under this chapter are now protected from liability.
I have a concern about that. We have to protect people, but when we see some of these children
who are harmed and damaged, I wonder whether the police ever get to find out about it. I wonder
whether some of these people in the Department of Child Safety ever find out about it. There is a
bullying mentality in some of these family environments or some of these foster care environments. The
children are intimidated, there is a fear factor and a report is never compiled on those children. That
concerns me. I think that concerns every Queenslander and I believe that it concerns every member of
this parliament.