Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to touch on some of the points that Senator Hinch has made in this motion. I think it is a very important and telling time for us to be debating this, as we lead into the Christmas and holiday period at the end of the year. Some of us are fortunate to have the opportunity to spend this time with the people we love and the people that we care about—members of the Senate aside—and it is an opportunity for us to reflect on what Senator Hinch has been talking about.

I note that this issue is something Senator Hinch has been very passionate about for many, many years; he has been speaking on this for many years, both in his previous incarnation in his media career and more recently in the Australian Senate. It a system of laws that, in some way, I believe was well intentioned—to protect people from being exploited, to protect people from being taken advantage of—but the system itself has so fundamentally failed so many people that they are the ones who are being left behind. You have a system where good foster parents, who want to do the right thing, who want to support children, who want to do their bit to help society, feel like the system has let them down. You have children, who, in many cases, are helpless, who end up falling into a system that takes advantage of them, that does not properly care for them. It puts them on this kind of rotation of going back to parents, who, frankly, in many circumstances, should perhaps not be having them—and this cycle continues. Then you end up having a criminal justice system that ends up taking up a lot of the slack later in time.

Senator Hinch has given a few examples, and what worries me is that some of the examples he referred to were people who had reached their teens or adolescence. Again, I am not so expert in this area as Senator Hinch is, but all the data demonstrates that, unfortunately, by the time you get to that stage, in many cases, it is too late. I hope the people in the individual cases Senator Hinch referred to will be able to properly deal with the issues they are going to be facing as a result of this.

As Senator Hinch touched on, there are some things that need to be above politics, and there are some things that need to be above party politics. The reality has been that, firstly, the problems and the heartache that this creates affects a group of people who are often unseen and forgotten; and, secondly, because it does not happen in the immediate short term, it has been ignored in this place for far too long. The parliament has ignored these matters for far too long. In relation to the issues that Senator Hinch touched on, the real problems are seen in five, 10, 15, 20 years, whereas, unfortunately—and, again, this is not about party politics—decisions are made too often in this place on a two-, three- or four-year cycle. We make short-term decisions about where to spend money or allocate resources rather than making long-term decisions in the interests of a child over the lifetime of a child.

Senator Hinch, what you are saying about the failure of care provided to these children, which is really the abuse of children, and a system that has abused children, is something that is worthy of exploration and worthy of this Senate's time in the new year. I know that Senator Hinch is looking at using some of the committee processes and inquiries and the power that we have as a Senate to do this. But I would hate to see the Senate, because of the overlap that naturally exists between state and federal jurisdictions over so many different areas, turn around and say: 'It is not our problem. It is not our concern. It is not our issue. It is someone else's problem. This is a state matter, even though there's some federal overlap.' I think that that would be doing the wrong thing by the children who have been exploited and have been taken advantage of. If you cannot have a system where these kids can feel like they can trust, if you do not have a system that is actually giving them the guidance and direction that they need, then really there is not going to be any hope for them.

We are all very privileged people who sit in this chamber. We all have different backgrounds, but, by virtue of being here, we have privilege and we have voices that a lot of these children do not have and will never have. I am fortunate enough to have a five-year-old and a three-year-old daughter. When we get to this Christmas period, we can look at the opportunity and luck that they will have in their lives. Compare that to some of the stories that Senator Hinch was referring to and you cannot help but feel: how can you have in a country that is as wealthy and as successful as ours such a disconnect between what our children are fortunate enough to have and what another group of children are unable to have?

What Senator Hinch is saying is: there are sensible, practical measures that we can take as a government to actually address some of these issues. I think sometimes we get very frustrated in this place when we look at the inequities and inequalities. Some of these things are so big that the frustration and natural tendency for us in this chamber is to turn around and go: 'Well, we can't do anything about that. It's far too big. It's far too hard.' I think what Senator Hinch is saying is: let's go back to the root cause of what is creating these problems. And where do you start? You start with what is in the interests of the child and then start creating a system around that.

Again, I do not believe that what is happening within the system at the moment is that there are people with the evil intention to do the wrong thing by children. I think what has happened is that, firstly, it has been ignored; secondly, it has probably been underfunded—again, I would like to see some data but I suspect it has been underfunded; and, thirdly, it has lost its way. So good, well-meaning people in most cases are giving up on the system.

Senator Hinch, I have friends who are in a situation to which you referred to earlier where, at a New South Wales level, their frustration with the system is so great that they have actually given up looking after children. These are the kinds of people who I believe we would want in the system. These are people who, unfortunately, are unable to have children of their own and they decided that they wanted to help, provide and be foster parents. But they felt so frustrated by the system that they got out. Unfortunately, you have this reverse emphasis: the people you want to get out of the system are the ones who end up staying; and the people we want in the system are the ones who end up getting out, because it all becomes too hard and too difficult.

I think we need to—and I think Senator Hinch would agree with this—do a lot more than move a motion, but it is important that we have this debate and look at how we can practically reform the system and fix some of these matters. I look forward to inquiries or whatever processes Senator Hinch chooses to push this in the new year.