Goward campaign a vicious vendetta

DESTRUCTION of the Fairfax media brand and what remains of "our" ABC's reputation continues apace with the vendetta being pursued against Pru Goward, the NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Minister.

DESTRUCTION of the Fairfax media brand and what remains of "our" ABC's reputation continues apace with the vendetta being pursued against Pru Goward, the NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Minister. The media organisations are running a strident campaign for the laughable rump that ?remains? of ?the ?NSW Labor Party and the real force within the opposition, the trade union movement. Over the past five weeks there have been more than 50 questions to Goward, many based on leaked documents, and most from the former minister, Linda Burney, whose legacy of disaster has been swept under the carpet. But the media attacks on Goward have nothing to do with competency, they are all about the blatant partisanship of the two Left-wing organisations which have been prosecuting a union battle against genuine reform of the sector. I certainly have nothing against media campaigns against governmental failure, indeed, The Daily and Sunday Telegraphs were instrumental in disclosing facts which forced NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell to dismiss former Finance Minister Greg Pearce for a breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct. The assault on Goward is entirely another matter and led FACS Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter, a respected public servant (who happens to be ?married to former federal Labor health minister Tanya Plibersek) to issue a strongly-worded warning to FACS staffers on Thursday. In his unprecedented admonition, he slammed the unnamed persons who provided a copy of an internal death review report to the ABC. He said the profound breach of trust was completely unacceptable, breaching the privacy of the little boy who died, his siblings, his family and friends. The report contained the most intimate details of the family, "information that is gathered and held in strictest confidence". The leaked material "contains unproven allegations about many people," he said, and breached the privacy of those who reported their concerns? about? the child to the department. ?Revealing such information increases the chance that others will not report concerns about other children at risk. "It is quite possible that the person or people responsible thought that some good would flow from their actions," Coutts-Trotter wrote. "If that's the case, they are quite wrong. "I have noted only dismay, shock and hurt among our colleagues inside the department and from the family of the little boy who died." The ABC's 7.30 Report led its program with an anonymous attack on Goward by union members last Wednesday, the first full day of the new Abbott government. The ABC report on the death of the little boy mentioned earlier led to an immediate suppression order on the case, which is still before the courts. Lawyers for the mother in the case noted that the ABC had made no contact before the broadcast, and that The Sydney Morning Herald had named and published photographs of the dead boy even though the naming and publication of images of those deceased who identify as Aboriginal is regarded as being highly offensive to their families. The photo has now been removed from the Fairfax website. Leaking of FACS files is a breach of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act, subsequent reporting of such material by the media is also illegal, as is the publication or broadcasting in any way the name of a person that connects that person with criminal proceedings under the S15A of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act. Such has been the enthusiasm of the ABC and Fairfax to act as spear carriers for the dysfunctional NSW ALP and union moment that their reports may well lead to a plea for a mistrial. The campaign to discredit Goward is viciously and bitterly personal. The ABC and Fairfax cannot acknowledge that her predecessor, Burney, had a shocking record. In attempting to cover up Burney's ministerial failure, the SMH even published one article in July taking Goward to task for FACS' actions in relation to the death of six-year-old Kiesha Weippeart - who died when Burney was minister in 2010. The record - which the ABC and Fairfax will not publish - shows that under Burney, case workers were seeing just one in five children and now are seeing one in four, or more than 4000 more than they were under Labor. There were 83 child deaths in 2012, under Burney in 2010 there were 139 - and there is greater transparency with an annual Child Death Report now being published. Children's lives should be above politics, but they are not when Labor and its media allies see their core ideology under attack.