Kylie Lang: This government has failed on too many occasions.
The rights of victims – whether of crime or our shambolic healthcare system – should never be diminished, writes Kylie Lang. Sadly, this government has failed on too many occasions.
Kylie Lang
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Good government leads – it doesn’t sit back and wait for a crisis before taking action. This tenet is lost on the reactive Palaszczuk lot and we are all the poorer for it, hankering for change that comes too late or not at all.
Two particular issues this week warrant our ire.
The first is the absence of best practice guidelines in the state’s hospitals for caring for women who miscarry. This is unbelievable third world stuff.
Miscarriages aren’t rare – they occur in at least 15 per cent of confirmed pregnancies with the actual rate likely to be much higher at around one in four pregnancies, according to research group Miscarriage Australia.
One in four. That’s higher than the breast cancer rate of one in seven women and the endometriosis rate of one in nine.
Women who miscarry can die from complications, be rendered infertile, and carry emotional trauma for life.
But hey, if you ask Queensland Health, it’s a non-event. Until now.
It should never have taken the awful news that a woman was left to languish in her own blood with her miscarried baby in a biohazard bag for the government to wake up.
New Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has described the Ipswich Hospital case as “heartbreaking” and “unacceptable”, and instructed the department to “urgently” work with frontline staff to come up with a set of best practice guidelines.
Like I said, reactive.
How can we trust that the government cares about our wellbeing – and hasn’t the foggiest about how to protect it – when it persistently plays catch-up, one crisis after another?
Short answer: we can’t. As I said in this column last week, Ms Fentiman has been given the worst job in state politics. I wish her luck.
While it is encouraging that she’s taking a boots-on-the-ground approach – in contrast to her predecessor Yvette D’Ath – can she make a difference? And will it be enough? Only time will tell.
But let’s be clear: Quality health care is not something we should be grateful for – it is what we deserve and pay for through our taxes.
The second issue that should be firing us up is the poorly named youth justice system.
The Palaszczuk government has no place crowing about stiffer penalties and “getting tough” on crime.
Until it sufficiently tightens bail laws, soft-touch magistrates and judges will continue to let kids off – and back on our streets. Juvenile offenders know the laws are useless and they have no respect for police or any other authority figures.
This was highlighted in the apparent behaviour of a 17-year-old charged over an alleged armed carjacking in Bulimba on Sunday.
After the court on Wednesday granted him bail – a decision police are appealing – the youth then reportedly took to social media to gloat, posting images on Snapchat mocking police, saying they had no evidence and the video of his Tuesday night arrest was “cute”.
In said video, the arresting officer can be heard saying, “you are under arrest at the moment, you have got multiple warrants out and you’re wanted for questioning as well for burglary”.
As for the alleged victim, he told The Courier-Mail he was more upset watching the social media footage than he was on the day the alleged crime occurred. That’s saying something because being confronted by two males allegedly brandishing a knife and shovel as you reverse your car in your driveway must be terrifying.
An 18-year-old man was also charged, on Thursday.
“We were hoping this was all over and police (would) take over from here … but the amount of anxiety it created last evening looking at the (Snapchat) visuals just horrified me,” the carjacking victim said. He said police were doing their best but it was “clearly a broken justice system if someone can get bail in a day”.
The man said communities knew only too well what was going on but awareness was lacking from “law members and elected members”.
Spot on. How much worse must things get before our government steps up instead of trying to placate us with rhetoric?
People deserve to live without fear.
The rights of victims – whether of crime or a shambolic healthcare system – should never be diminished.
Sadly, this government has failed on too many occasions. No surprises that the slogan “out the door in ’24” is so catchy.
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