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Once Were Warriors . . Page.. 979 ..

Many people in the community are very nervous about mandatory reporting. They know, as we all know, that once reporting is mandatory a vast range of support services is necessary. So, the development toward mandatory reporting has been slow, and I believe necessarily slow. Today I am not asking for progress to be any faster. Let me repeat: I am not asking for the imminent introduction of mandatory reporting. I am asking for all-in support for the Minister and, through the Minister, the Chief Minister so that the entire Government is involved, and then the entire Assembly, in a regular monitoring of the progress towards mandatory reporting.

Within the community there are a great variety of views about the raising and treatment of children and the responsibilities of adults in daily contact with young people. It is still not universally accepted that corporal punishment is not appropriate punishment for children. In fact, in one educational system in Australia corporal punishment is still permitted. In the ACT it was abolished a long time ago, but there are still many who believe that it is a necessary and important part of child rearing and of punishment within schools. How parents treat their children at home or even in public places is not regulated. We have all been witness to unpleasant incidents of violence against children in shopping centres. We know that had it been adult against adult one would have been able to sue the other for assault; but we are left helpless, unless we dare intervene in what is seen as a family matter, watching these often very unpleasant incidents. These inconsistencies exist in our society. I hope that they are indications that things are changing, as they have changed in our schools. I hope that eventually parents will not feel the need ever to strike their children.

I accept that there is a vast variety of views in our community. Whilst violence against children is condoned, it is difficult to persuade some people that their level of violence against their own children is unacceptable. For some accustomed to a climate of violence, a thorough beating is an everyday affair; for others, an odd slap is completely unacceptable. This is one of the many complexities that confront anyone who tries to tackle the question of child abuse and attempts to grapple with the necessity of making the reporting of abuse mandatory.

Let me now detail some of these complexities. Firstly, there are the circumstances that surround the level of abuse. These vary greatly. As I have already said, in some instances there is a very high level of cultural acceptance. One only had to see Once Were Warriors to see how differently some cultures view the rearing of the children and the place of violence in communities from others. We have to be sensitive to those contexts and then work through them. In other situations an illness that confronts a family can lead to a high level of violence and abuse against children. So, too, can post-traumatic stress. One of the parents or an older member of the family might have been involved in an accident that resulted in brain injury, for instance, and suddenly you have a high level of violence and abuse of children.

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