Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bartlett today relating to the sexual assault and abuse of children.

The question I asked related to a motion passed by the Senate earlier this morning without dissent—I presume it was with the support of all parties in this chamber. In that motion, the Senate recognised, among other things, the importance of following up expressions of concern with regard to the sexual assault and abuse of children and young people with genuine action to assist survivors of sexual assault and to bring perpetrators to justice. The Senate also expressed without dissent its support for the longstanding call for a comprehensive royal commission into the sexual assault and abuse of children throughout Australia, especially in institutions.

I appreciate that the minister could not instantaneously give a response that the Prime Minister and the cabinet had considered this resolution in the space of a few hours and resolved to implement a royal commission—although the government is capable of acting extremely quickly on some issues—but I do want to reinforce the key points of the resolution. It does not just support the calls for a royal commission; it also specifically recognises the importance of following up expressions of concern with genuine action. That is certainly the point that the Democrats will continue to push right through to election day and for as long as we have breath in our bodies.

It does need more than just expressions of concern and general statements about how terrible the sexual assault of children is and the need for us all to do more and all those sorts of things. That is all well and good, but it needs to be followed up with genuine action. The minister noted, quite understandably and correctly, that there are efforts through Commonwealth and state governments to work together to improve our performance with regard to child protection. As I have stated in this chamber a number of times before, as have people from other parties, there is certainly a lot of room for improvement in that regard. We have failed pretty dismally, collectively—and societally I might say—across the political spectrum in ensuring as much as is humanly possible a safe environment for children.

I should make the point that, whilst I am urging action from government and political parties in this regard, it is an issue where, as a society, we need to take more responsibility. It is not one of those issues, frankly, where you can expect the government to fix it. You can expect the government to show leadership on it; you can expect some comprehensive, cohesive national strategies, which in my view would include a royal commission or some similar type of independent commission of inquiry to comprehensively examine the issue rather than deal with it in an ad hoc way.

The concern that I and the Democrats have—and that is part of the motivation behind this resolution, as is probably fairly obvious—is that once again we had a particular incident generating a lot of publicity. This was the reraising of concerns about an alleged incident in a youth detention centre in Brisbane some time ago and the fact that the issues of justice with regard to that had not been resolved. It is a serious issue and it needs action. But obviously there is politics involved in that. Obviously that is a part of why it has resurfaced. I think we need to be making sure that we look comprehensively at this issue as a whole—and as much as possible in a non-partisan, independent way—and not have a sudden focus on one area because there is a political scandal, political opportunity or just media heat or whatever it is.

That is why we need to be having some national cooperation and leadership on the issue. That includes the sort of comprehensive examination of the totality of the issue that I do not believe we have ever had. We have had bits and pieces here and there with regard to specific institutions, specific groups in the community, specific regions, specific churches—some done by independent bodies, some by governments, some by departments—but we have not had a comprehensive nationwide examination. That is why the Democrats keep supporting this call, which others in the community have also made. That is why I would reinforce our request to government—and the opposition leader, who is obviously moving to a period where he is putting himself as the alternative Prime Minister—to act on this as a matter of urgency and get a comprehensive examination and action plan to follow up those expressions of concern with action and do so as a matter of urgency.

Question agreed to.