Law On Child Abuse Creates a Monster
Herald Sun Tuesday, December 16, 1986
The new law on child abuse is wrong. In trying to deal with a monster, it creates another. The law will let a welfare officer take a child by force from his home: the officer need only claim that the child was likely to be abused.
I support the movement against child abuse. And I believe that public discussion and education will produce a major and lasting effect on the standard of parenting.
Furthermore children who are injured or raped need to be rescued. But we cannot afford to depart from the rock on which public faith in the law is based: a man is innocent until proven guilty.
How could a government department possibly compensate an innocent child and adult who have suffered abduction, forced separation, and loss of parental dignity?
And that's only the tip of the iceberg. You can be sure that for every case where a welfare power is used, there will be a hundred cases where parents are threatened into conforming with an officer's wishes.
Few cases are as clear as injury or rape. Officers interfere in wider lifestyle questions such as education, birth, abode, sexuality, health concepts, etc. Parents with alternative ideas can be given a hard time.
Furthermore this new law would create an ugly new weapon against innocent individuals. Nasty or unbalanced people could precipitate - or just threaten to precipitate - this official kidnapping-without-trial.
Malicious gossipers, resentful non-custodial parents, hostile in-laws, and sometimes biased welfare professionals will swear that children are in danger - without proof.
It is a mistake to try to solve social evils by appointing Government officers with God-like powers on the assumption these officers are morally superior to the people they stand over.
Philip O'Carroll