Opinion: Sex offenders escape scrutiny as Child Safety Department fails to refer cases to police
IN light of the epidemic of child abuse in this state, it is disappointing that the Child Safety Minister is ignorant of her department’s responsibility to refer certain cases of child abuse to police.
Opinion
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HOW many sex offenders escape justice because the Child Safety Department neglects to alert police?
How many children have been sent back to abusive homes only to be molested or bashed again?
Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman said she didn’t know.
I thought her answers to questions on notice tabled in Parliament recently were disappointing in light of the epidemic of child abuse in some Queensland communities.
Fentiman was asked how many cases of substantial harm were reported to police for a criminal investigation.
She had no answer.
Next she was asked how many times child safety officers were asked to give evidence in criminal proceedings.
Still no answer.
Then Fentiman was asked to reveal the number of children who had been returned to homes where a parent or guardian had convictions for criminal child abuse.
Again she failed to answer.
And she made it clear she had no intention of finding out.
Her reasoning was alarming, in my view.
“The data requested in the question does not form part of the department’s regular reporting. Providing the data would require a significant amount of work and divert officers from supporting hardworking child safety officers,’’ she said.
I would have thought this kind of information would be vital in protecting children the department already knows are at risk.
Fentiman coated her non-answers in a lot of waffle.
“Child protection is everyone’s business,” she said.
If I hear that supercilious platitude again, I’ll scream.
Of course the safety and well-being of children is everyone’s business. And it is the business of the Minister more than most.
I have already written on these pages about children known to the department being returned to homes where parents were drug addicts or prostitutes.
It’s an intolerable situation.
We already know that half of offenders in child abuse cases had a criminal history.
More than half had drug or alcohol addictions.
And nearly half of the homes where kids were abused or neglected had experienced domestic violence.
Why does the State Government allow abused children to return to these hell holes?
Sexually abused kids are prime candidates for self- harm and suicide. And they can grow up to become predators themselves.
Hundreds of Queensland children are still at risk.
Opposition child safety spokeswoman Ros Bates points to a communication breakdown between the police and child safety departments.
Gaps were exposed during investigations into the deaths of toddler Mason Jet Lee and schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer – children who slipped through the safety nets.
Bates urged Fentiman to go and find the answers to the questions in Parliament.
“The Minister was either unaware or ignorant of her department’s responsibility to refer certain cases of child abuse to police,” Bates said.
She said it was well known inside the department that dozens of cases of suspected criminal child abuse were going unchecked.
“Questions remain unanswered over the number of child victims of criminal abuse who were returned or left with the offending parent,” Bates said.
It was worse in Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities.
“Indigenous children make up 29 per cent of confirmed cases of sexual abuse by the Child Safety Department last year.
“With evidence confirming young indigenous girls are being fitted with contraceptive implants in remote communities, the Palaszczuk Government is flying blind as to the real impact of sex crimes being committed against both indigenous and non-indigenous children.”
Students now pawns in unions wars
THE union stronghold over the Palaszczuk Government extends further into Queensland life than you might imagine.
It stretches all the way into state school classrooms, where 543,000 students have effectively become pawns in an industrial campaign.
It began when the Queensland Teachers’ Union flexed its muscle to overrule principals and P&Cs to block schools applying to become Independent Public Schools.
The launch of Independent Public Schools within the state education system by then minister John-Paul Langbroek was one of the triumphs of the Newman government. More than 200 independent state schools took up the offer.
The Langbroek model empowered schools to engage with their communities and run their own affairs while chipping away at Big Brother bureaucracy.
The Langbroek model sensibly allowed principals and school communities a deal of autonomy in selecting teachers, setting performance benchmarks, setting curriculums and deciding where the money was best spent.
Education Minister Kate Jones is now letting the unions call the shots.
The left-wing QTU has an ideological objection to Independent Public Schools.
Independent schools would certainly weaken the union and perhaps make it irrelevant in certain communities. Is that such a bad thing?
A recent letter by Mansfield State School principal Kym Amor explains the veto powers Jones handed the QTU.
“After our consultation and vote, our school has decided not to submit an application to become an Independent Public School,” Amor wrote.
“The parents and school community members were significantly in favour, and we thank you for your valuable input and support.
“A new condition of the application process requires majority support from the QTU members in the school, and this was not obtained.”
Amor’s tone was one of disappointment.
The letter shows how a bunch of disgruntled unionists were able to ride roughshod over the principal, the wider school community and many fellow teachers.
I’m told at least 21 schools seeking independent status were not even able to apply because of the union veto.
It’s worth remembering the QTU campaigned heavily against the Newman government at the last state election in areas beyond education. It staunchly opposed asset sales, for instance.
So Jones is in hock to the QTU for its help in winning back her seat of Ashgrove and toppling Campbell Newman.
Her victory was due, in part, to a misinformation campaign suggesting frontline staff at Ashgrove schools had been cut, when in fact the number of teachers increased under the LNP.
Jones gave the QTU the power to veto Independent Public Schools in October 2015.
At the time she insisted it was all about giving teachers a say and said it was not a reward for their political support. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t now.
Opposition education spokeswoman Tracy Davis said Mansfield families had been betrayed and Jones was allowing the QTU to trample the rights of parents throughout the state.
I agree.
“Giving parents and principals a greater say in the way schools are run empowers local communities across Queensland,” Davis said.
Songbird sees the light
QUEENSLAND hits all the high notes for opera diva Judit Molnar.
The Hungarian-born spinto soprano was polishing off a mango this week when she told me she had decided to settle in Brisbane permanently.
And she and her husband, Zoltan, a news cameraman, will next week become dinky-di Aussies.
Molnar will sing the national anthem at the Australia Day citizenship ceremony at City Hall, where she and 2289 others will take the pledge.
“And to think I couldn’t even speak a word of English when I came to Australia in 2012, ’’she said.
Then Molnar performed in The Merry Widow for Opera Australia. She fell in love with Australia – especially the sunshine and a more relaxed attitude to life.
No fewer than 4411 people from 123 countries will become Australian citizens in 74 ceremonies across Queensland on Australia Day.
Around the nation, 16,000 new citizens will take the pledge.
Molnar, 38 (“But I look 28,” she said), grew up in Miskolc in Hungary and was a pianist before switching to singing at 16.
She has performed in concert halls around the world, singing in Hungarian, Italian, French, German, Czech, Russian and Spanish.
Hear her perform with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra on March 19 at the Concert Hall at QPAC from 11.30am.
Her song sheet will include Strauss’ famous Czardas from Die Fledermaus and Vilja from The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar.
In Brisbane she will study at the Conservatorium of Music and teach singing.
P.S…
Curse that Murdoch press
I UNDERSTAND an internal investigation is planned to examine credit card “anomalies” at the mining division of the CFMEU.
An independent auditor raised questions over the use of corporate credit cards by officials. Jason Croston, of SRJ Walker Wayland, said credit card expenses totalled $721,116 last financial year.
He said there was no evidence all of the expenditure was incurred solely for business purposes.
Members seek to discuss possible breaches of the corporate credit card policy.
I was glad to see branch president Stephen Allan Smyth reassure members that everything was hunky-dory. In an email he said: “I am unfortunately away on annual leave and out of the country. I am interested on what basis the urgent meeting has been called.
“Furthermore I am concerned that once again allegations are being thrown around about alleged misuse. I am sure we all realise we run a centralised account for all lodges?
“Officials are audited each and every year! What’s more disappointing is that we have a number of people believing the Murdock (sic) press and others.
“This is a district matter and the district will continue to manage it as it has in a manner which is open and transparent.”
The pledges of transparency are encouraging. Smyth could start by releasing his own credit card statements.
What disclosures?
MINDERS in the office of holidaying Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace assure me the State Government did not sneakily change the law in December simply to allow union fat cats to hide their corporate credit card expenditure from members. The December vote stealthily – after midnight, as it happened – overturned Newman government laws requiring credit card expenditure to be posted online.
It was a significant story that did not gain traction in the silly season. Acting Industrial Relations Minister Shannon Fentiman rejected my suggestions that Parliament was misused as part of a cover-up. It was simply a move to get rid of “far too much red tape”.
However, Fentiman revealed the Newman laws were still in place. Labor’s industrial relations Bill won’t be proclaimed until March.
She said the Newman laws still applied. Interesting.
I’m yet to see United Voice and Together Union chiefs post their statements, as the law requires.
Teen girls tell
FORMER radio host Madonna King has written a book, Being 14 (Hachette, RRP $33). “It’s about what every 14-year-old girl wants their mum and dad to know, and what every parent needs,’’ she said in a publicity blurb.
King, a former ABC morning show presenter and columnist, added, “In preparation for writing
Being 14, I interviewed 192 14-year-old girls, dozens of school principals, school guidance counsellors, and nurses, teen psychologists, polices officers, parenting experts and authors.”
Cases unresolved
BRISBANE Boys College headmaster Graeme McDonald is leaving the elite school this year after 15 years. He is likely to depart before an embarrassing case brought by a sacked rowing coach is settled. David Bellamy is suing BBC for $1 million in damages for breach of contract and defamation.
He alleges his sacking as head coach destroyed his career and left him humiliated. Bellamy was dismissed for using the word “wanga”, a slang term for penis, when he spoke to 50 rowers in January 2014.
He had been asked to warn boys about their behaviour after “lewd sex acts” at an earlier camp.
The Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association, for BBC, is staunchly defending the case. A trial is imminent.
In another case, former student Dominic Mallett, 22, is suing the school for $600,000. He claims he suffered years of bullying from a predator group at the school. Teachers did nothing to stop “a culture of bullying”, he said.
He said what?
“AMERICANS should remember that they are empowered as citizens to influence the nation’s future for the better. We shall overcome.”
The 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, 55, says farewell.
Irritant of the week
ANARCHISTS from the Greens who plan to burn the flag on Australia Day. The party’s Left Renewal faction has urged supporters to join in “seven days of resistance in the lead-up to Invasion Day”.
Twitter: @DesHoughton
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