Demand On Child Protection Policies
28 July 2010 at 11:52 am
Three of Australia’s peak family welfare Not for Profit organisations – the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), the Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia (CAFWAA), and Families Australia – have demanded that all Federal political parties urgently inform the Australian public about their plans to fix Australia’s crisis in child abuse and neglect in the lead up to the election.
Speaking at the SNAICC National Conference in Alice Springs, the Chairs of the three organisations highlighted that there are concerns registered about the safety and wellbeing of some 300,000 children around Australia each year, and that the rate of child abuse and neglect substantiations continues to rise nationally.
They say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, in particular, are dramatically over-represented in the child protection system.
According to the peak organisations, while some welcome Federal Government attention has focused on the problem through the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children, progress has been slow in making substantive advances to address the longer-term causes and the current alarming rates of child abuse and neglect.
They say the quantum of funds devoted to the Framework’s implementation is woefully inadequate and there is a need for systemic change rather than the stigmatisation of individual families.
SNAICC, CAFWAA and Families Australia call on Federal political parties to announce their plans to solve the crisis for the sake of children and families including the announcement of an Office for Children and Young People and a National Aboriginal Child Safety Commissioner.
The resources necessary to provide adequately responding child welfare state agencies cannot materialize out of thin air, nor can these services run on the smell of the proverbail “oily rag”.
Taxation is the mechanism in society to pay for these services.
Lower taxation equates less services, and poorly run agencies.
It is time all Australians take responsibility for the appalling condition of every state child protection agency across Australia. We either pay for it, or ‘tut tut’ while we shrug and inwardly assume that it has nothing to do with “me”.
One thing is for sure, abused children do not easily grow up into functional adults, so the rest of society is eventually affected.
God help us if Australia ends up again with another decade of right wing, conservative political governments that believe that the mark of good government is lower taxes. It will to the benefit of those who are in the position to desire the protection of their ‘hard earned super profits’, but ultimately, it just politics of greed at the expense of the most vulnerable.