Page 797 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2018
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Out of home care programs and child, youth and family support services must adhere to child safe organisation guidelines as part of their funding agreements. There are a range of industry and professional regulation and registration practices which all contribute to ensuring that organisations and individuals coming into contact with children are aware of the signs of abuse and how to respond. This goes to an important part of Mrs Kikkert’s motion today, that adults need to have the skills and awareness so that when a child tries to speak about it or shows signs, adults are capable of recognising that and intervening as early as possible.
Some of the initiatives I have talked about today indicate that the ACT government is committed to addressing the issue of the sexual abuse of children in a comprehensive way. Whilst we continue to learn in this space, I feel that we are making progress in implementing better policies and better reporting schemes than have existed in the past.
We cannot guarantee that children will never fall through the cracks or that children will never be sexually abused, but we can do our best to prevent it or intervene early when it does happen. We must do our best to ensure that parents have access to the right information at the right time. As I said, I think that is the central point of Mrs Kikkert’s motion, and I completely agree with her on that point.
Mrs Kikkert has noted the presence in the chamber today of a family who have been affected by these issues. I would like to acknowledge their bravery in coming forward and campaigning on these issues and offer my sincere sympathy and compassion. It feels impossible to find the words to describe how devastating it is to learn that your child has been sexually abused, and how much more devastating that would be in the case where it was someone you trusted who did the abusing. I am very sorry to hear the story that that family has lived through and experienced, and I acknowledge their pain. Please know that I and my colleagues are committed to ensuring that information about child sexual abuse and how it occurs, what the warning signs are and how to respond are made available to parents and in the public domain.
I conclude by simply noting that the Greens will be supporting both the amendments, the one put forward by Ms Stephen-Smith and the one to be put forward by Mr Coe. With those combined efforts, I think we have a powerful way forward and some very important work to do to continue the progress that we are making in relation to these matters.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.59): Over the last few years, many people have come forward and spoken publicly about the sexual abuse that they suffered as children. These stories are always horrific, and there is clear evidence that these experiences have far-reaching effects on the survivors, their families and the wider community.
The stats in the motion are pretty shocking. Twelve per cent of women and 4.5 per cent of men have suffered sexual abuse before the age of 15. And whilst Ms Stephen-Smith rightly spoke about substantiated offences, of course there are many that have not been formally substantiated, because often there are no witnesses;
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