Page 4311 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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There is a level of material provision that wealthy people can give their children that can be totally unmatched by the psychological and emotional support those children can give. We often see it, and Mr Jensen agrees with me. You will, as a lawyer, often see rich people's children in the Children's Court. I have defended them on many occasions or have been involved with those cases - not that I always had rich clients. I will come back to that.
Are we going to look at more modern concepts of neglect? We do in other legislation. Will we deal with psychological neglect, the wealthy parents who do not have time for their children? They begat them, provided well for them in terms of shelter and food and fast cars, but did not give them the emotional support. It is all very complex, Mr Speaker. It is not an issue, I think, that legislatures can lightly talk about in terms of punishment and getting parents into a proper role to look after their children.
Go back to the deprived classes. To use the language frankly and brutally, there are many cases of single parent families and people who are struggling in poverty in this community. Are you going to punish them for leaving the children unguarded because they have a double job, or they have a job on the weekend? It is neglect in a way, but is not the real neglect the neglect of a government which has promised to get rid of child poverty by a date and has not? Where are you going to fix your causal limits in a debate of this nature?
This is a preposterous proposition by Mr Stefaniak. It is the one that I do not think does him very well. I have been kind about all the rest. I say to Mr Stefaniak: Try to get a human face in the legislature. This one has so many issues of insensitivity about it that it is appalling. It is one that the Rally utterly rejects. This is not the way to approach child welfare. This is all about crime and punishment. This belongs in Dostoevski. It is nineteenth century thought processing.
Mr Humphries: Are you opposed to it, Bernard?
MR COLLAERY: I am sure that Bill has given me serves here in the past. He gave me a horrible serve here once when he just missed by a whisker becoming Attorney-General. I have not forgotten that one. Apart from that serve that he gave me, this is the only serve I probably will give him in the life of this Assembly. Other than that, we work very effectively together in a quite ironical sense. But I say to Mr Stefaniak: No, this one is really off; this is not on. Parents have to look after their children, but not at the crack of a whip.
MR STEFANIAK (5.13): I suppose I should be grateful for Mr Collaery saying that that is the last serve that he will be giving me, or the only one.
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