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The
Newman Letter
01 July 05
Five point plan to
halt NZ's dire child abuse record
Answers
to parliamentary questions show that established cases of
child abuse have surged 45 percent over the last twelve months
to a record 13,017 cases. This is a child abuse scandal that
has the fingerprints of Government failure all over it.
When Labour was in opposition they were
outspoken about the need to reduce child abuse. But when they
become the government, they failed to tackle the issues at the
heart of the problem – family breakdown and long-term
welfare dependency.
The reason, some say, is that left wing
governments thrive on dependency and abused children are all
too often damaged for life, needing on-going state support.
While this is certainly a very cynical view, after watching
Labour closely for nine years, it rings true.
This escalation in child abuse is the
greatest scandal in New Zealand today. Every other Government
failure pales into insignificance. Kiwi children should expect
unconditional love. Instead, more than 13,000 were subjected
to horrific levels of physical, sexual or emotional abuse and
neglect last year.
While Labour claims the growing numbers are
due to an increase in the reporting of child abuse that excuse
is no longer credible. The Government knows only too well that
the overwhelming majority of cases of child abuse occur in
families where the biological father is absent, where the
family is unstable with the mother often having multiple
relationships with different men, where the family income is a
welfare cheque and where there is already an established
history of child abuse.
Government officials also know that it is a
relatively small number of families in each community where
the abuse happens. In these families the children suffer from
preventable health problems, their connection with the
education system is fragile, their communication skills
under-developed and as they get older they are prone to
destructive behaviours leading to self-harm and crime.
Yesterday’s lead story in the Dominion
Post newspaper “How to pick a crim at age 3” served as a
sober reminder that abused children all too often become
serious violent criminals. In fact, paediatric research
suggests that abused children are disproportionately
represented amongst youngsters with suicidal tendencies,
substance abuse problems, and teenage parenthood. Without
intervention these children will become responsible for 80
percent of New Zealand's crime.
Abusive families are also high users of
social services: it is not unusual for a single such family to
have on-going contact with more than a dozen different
government agencies such as CYF, Work and Income, Special
Education, ACC, hospitals and other health providers, Police,
youth justice coordinators, courts, probation and truancy
services, as well as agencies like Women’s Refuge, food
banks and private welfare agencies.
The cost to the taxpayer of one such family
can easily amount to well over $100,000 a year in
uncoordinated, ad hoc interventions. Yet, in spite of
substantial expenditure, no single person or agency is able to
report on exactly what has been spent, how it has been spent,
whether or not the expenditure has been successful, or indeed
whether a duplication of services has occurred.
The cost of failure is huge: care for one
abused and injured child in hospital averages just under
$9,000 for every admission. Keeping one troubled youth in a
residential centre costs around $120,000 a year. Housing an
offender in prison averages about $70,000 a year. These
figures are only the tip of the iceberg if the effect on
victims and their families is factored in.
It is an indictment on successive
governments that more has not already been done to turn the
situation around and since one of the important roles of ACT
has been to develop solutions to difficult problems – which
other parties then adopt as their own – I will outline
ACT’s five point plan to turn the situation around:
Firstly, it’s long past time to introduce
proper welfare reform to require everyone on welfare who is
able-bodied - including sole parents with school aged children
- to get a job. Work brings structure and purpose into family
life, as well as encouraging personal responsibility and
self-reliance. Further, families that need the assistance of a
mentor who can provide them with support and parenting
guidance to enable them to turn around their lives and become
better parents to their children should get one.
Secondly, harsh though it may sound these
days, women who are not in a position to properly care for
their babies should be encouraged to adopt them out. It is
just heartbreaking to read of cases like three and a half
month old baby Sarah from Putaruru whose mother is accused of
battering her to death, when we all know that there are so
many loving families around who are desperate to adopt a baby.
Thirdly, we must introduce shared parenting
to ensure that if parents do separate, children do not lose
the support of their biological fathers. Fathers have always
played a key role in protecting their children and denying a
child of fatherly contact increases chances that they could be
abused.
Fourthly, it is absolutely vital that New
Zealand’s child welfare service is focused on prevention,
with the investigation of abuse as well as the hunting down,
catching and prosecuting of offenders, being the
responsibility of the Youth Division of the Police.
If child welfare operated as a
one-stop-shop community based family service, with social
workers, police, health and education professionals working in
teams with the goal of reducing child abuse in their
community, then child abuse would fall dramatically.
And
finally, we need to ensure greater accountability of agencies
that deal with child abuse through a more open Family Court. A
few years ago, the Chief Family Court Judge, Peter Boshier
opened up his court to the media to expose the incompetence of
CYF in failing to carry out court orders. He publicly
threatened to charge the Chief Executive with contempt of
court. In jurisdictions where courts have been opened, child
abuse has declined as perpetrators were exposed to greater
levels of public humiliation and shame and agencies improved
their performance.
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