Size of child abuse problem 'horrific'

29/04 The Age | AUSTRALIA'S child protection systems have been described as failing the children they are meant to help, with Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin saying the number of confirmed cases of child abuse was "horrific". Ms Macklin said more than 55,000 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect were recorded last year. "We have to confront the reality that these numbers tell us that we are letting down far, far too many children in this country," she said.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there were 24,732 substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect in 1999-2000. By 2007-08 the numbers had more than doubled to 55,120.... Calling for fundamental change in the way child protection was delivered, the report said state-run child protection authorities were overwhelmed with investigating record numbers of alleged incidences of child abuse and were often unable to focus their efforts on prevention.

The Lobbyist View: COMBATTING AGGRESSIVE SECULARISM AND RIGHTS-DRIVEN CULTURE

Glynis Quinlan | The electorate has had enough of self-opinionated bishops and crazy imams, and many citizens are fed up with the way the main parties bow and scrape to religious groups.”

So writes Ross Fitzgerald recently in The Australian in yet another attack on the rights of Christians to have an influence in the public square. Reading between the lines of the article, it's apparently better for the sex party and secularists to influence the way we are governed!

The electorate has had enough of self-opinionated bishops and crazy imams, and many citizens are fed up with the way the main parties bow and scrape to religious groups.”

So writes Ross Fitzgerald recently in The Australian in yet another attack on the rights of Christians to have an influence in the public square. Reading between the lines of the article, it's apparently better for the sex party and secularists to influence the way we are governed!

Single parents, jobless call on charities

29/04 The Australian, Patricia Karvelas | SINGLE parents and the unemployed are the biggest groups seeking urgent financial help from charities to cover essential items such as medical expenses, power bills, groceries, transport and rent, but may miss out on a payment boost in the budget.

Emergency relief providers and the Australian Council of Social Service are urging the Government to use the budget to address the inadequacy of the payments received by these groups. The economic crisis has caused massive job losses, with projections there could be a million unemployed by the end of next year.

The Rudd Government is considering an increase in unemployment benefits but faces intense pressure to lift the age pension by $30 a week, amid speculation it might redirect some of the anticipated rise to people on the dole. The powerful National Seniors lobby group and the federal Opposition have vowed to fight any move by the Government to give single pensioners less than a $30-a-week rise.

I Smell A Rat!

Peter Stokes, Saltshakers | A 19 year old in Cairns Queensland smuggles an abortion drug into Australia and aborts her baby.

Somehow the authorities find out and charge her with procuring an abortion - a law that is 100 years old.

In the same town resides Caroline de Costa, first doctor to apply for and use RU 486, the abortion drug, and a strong campaigner for the state law to be changed to allow abortion on demand.

Pro abortion lobbyists rally in Brisbane against this landmark test case saying it "sets an ugly precedent for the rights of women".

Should not the last statement say "against" the rights of women, because it is clearly a case "for" the rights of the unborn child?
Who conveniently told the police?

Has she been charged with illegal importation of a drug? If not, why not, as this would be far less 'political' and possibly more likely to gain a conviction.

Why did the couple not use the available services of Caroline de Costa?

WHY NOW?

Clearly, this is a convenient 'trigger' to persuade the Queensland Labor government to move towards removing abortion from the Crimes Act as has recently happened in Victoria.

This legal precedent would be very convenient for the Labor government which, just prior to the Qld election, apparently stated it would not be moving to change the abortion law. A day is always a long time in politics and election commitments with loose wording are easily 'broken'.

This case is one where a child was killed simply because the two parents felt they were not "OLD ENOUGH"!  Since when has 19 and 21 not been old enough to have a child? Surely they simply mean it was not convenient.

This child has certainly been sacrificed on the altar of convenience but may also have been sacrificed for political expediency too. 

Teen's criminal case renews abortion law debate

ABC News | For the first time in at least 50 years, a Queensland woman has been charged with organising her own abortion.

The 19-year-old from Cairns in the state's far north faces up to 14 years in jail after allegedly bringing in an illegal drug from overseas to carry out the procedure. The case has reignited the debate about the decriminalisation of the practice. Cairns gynaecologist and James Cook University lecturer Caroline de Costa says that abortion needs to be decriminalised.

"It's very unfortunate for the young woman herself, because abortion should be a private matter between herself and her doctor and her partner and other people she wishes to include," she said. "The whole idea of punishing women for having an abortion is really contrary to the majority view in Australia I think." Professor de Costa was the first in Australia to apply for the rights to supply the abortion drug RU486 and has been using it legally in Cairns for the past three-and-a-half-years.

26/04 Catholic Weekly | “The asylum seeker tragedy off Ashmore Reef is an opportunity for government, Church and other organisations to come together and seriously review policies to consider the best way we can help people fleeing conflict and persecution,” said Bishop Joseph Grech, the Australian Catholic Bishops delegate on immigration issues.

On April 16 a fire broke out on a boat carrying 47 Afghan asylum seekers and two Indonesian crew. The previous day the boat had been spotted by Border Protection Command surveillance near Ashmore Reef, about 610km north of Broome and 800km west of Darwin.

At the time of the fire three Navy personnel were on board in preparation to escort the boat to Christmas Island. Three people were killed in the fire. Two people who were missing are now presumed dead. The remaining 44 who are injured, including 30 with serious burns, are being treated in hospitals in Perth, Broome and Darwin.

“This tragedy is a reminder of the terrible dangers people face when they seek to flee their homeland because of conflict and persecution,” said Bishop Grech.

Abuse risk higher’ for cohabitors

26/04 Catholic Weekly | Cohabitors with kids are more likely to break up and the children tend to do less well at school, says Chris Meney, director of the Sydney archdiocese’s Life, Marriage and Family Centre.
“In addition, parental obligations to children seem stronger after divorce than after cohabitation, e.g. re father contact and monetary support,” he said.
“There is also the Cinderella syndrome where children who reside in cohabitor homes with live-in boyfriends are at greater risk of abuse.”

He added: “When I speak of cohabitation I am talking of a man and a woman who live together in a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

“Since 1975 the numbers who have cohabited prior to marriage has increased five fold to over 75 per cent.

“Interestingly it is a little lower in NSW (below 70 per cent). Those who cohabit are more likely to have an Anglo background and, if they eventually marry, to have a civil rather than religious ceremony.

“Around 10-12 per cent of those who identify themselves as Catholic are cohabiting. Unsurprisingly the number of children now born outside of marriage has risen from five per cent to 32 per cent in the last 40 years.”

Specially trained staff ‘key to rehabilitating sex offenders’

26/04 Catholic Weekly | Treatment and supervision from specially trained staff is the key to rehabilitating young sex offenders says Fr Chris Riley, chief executive officer of Youth off the Streets. Fr Chris’ comments were in response to the West Australian Government’s recent announcement that it will treat its most troubled teenagers in a secure centre.

The rationale behind the decision is that the secure centre will be less expensive than other treatment options and will protect the community. In particular, the new centre is being established in response to a 16-year-old repeat sex offender, who will be sent to a semi-isolated rural property where he will be under 24-hour supervision to protect the community. The Government has estimated the cost at about $600,000 a year.

Fr Chris said while in some cases these secure settings were necessary to keep the community safe, they needed to be set up as healing places. “The problem I have with this 16-year-old being put into an isolated area is that the type of staff he would need to deal with his issues would not be available,” he said. “There are very specific strategies used to deal with young people who offend sexually. Staff need to be trained to do this work and therefore are hard to find.”

Clubs, pubs with poker machines 'should not be allowed to offer free child care'

25/04 Courier Mail | CLUBS and pubs with poker machines should not be allowed to offer free child care, the Productivity Commission gambling inquiry has been told. A submission from the St Vincent de Paul Society of Queensland warns current proposals to reduce problem gambling do not go far enough.

It recommends reducing drinking hours in hotels, forcing gamblers to take regular breaks from poker machines and removing creches from all gaming venues, The Courier-Mail reports.

"It seems that free child care is available at many venues," the submission says. "We believe that casinos and other gambling venues are not suitable places for children."

Under-age sex laws 'putting NT kids at risk'

20/04 ABC News | The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is warning that legislative changes in the Northern Territory could have a devastating impact on the health of many Indigenous children. The Northern Territory Government says its Care and Protection of Children Act is all about keeping kids safe.

But the AMA is warning the act's mandatory reporting requirements go too far and Dr Paul Bauert from the AMA's Northern Territory branch is deeply concerned. Until now, NT laws were similar to what operates in the other states; it was mandatory to report suspected child sexual abuse. But now health workers must report sexual activity among under-16s to a team that includes police and staff in the Territory's department of health and families.

Failure to do so could result in a fine of up to around $20,000. And it is not just doctors who will have to report. "This applies to everybody," Dr Bauert said. "Parents, brothers and sisters, mates." The legislation has been in place for months but it was only late last week that the Northern Territory Health Department told staff to comply.

They were told to report anyone under 16 who is sexually active, even if that person's sexual partner is also under 16 or of the same age, and regardless of consent. "Any person who has sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 16 is guilty of a crime and liable to imprisonment for 16 years," Dr Bauert said.

Mental health 'overlooked' in Australian hospitals

07/04 ABC News | Researchers are pushing for more mental health workers to be employed in Australian hospitals. A report in this week's Medical Journal of Australia says patients' psychosocial issues are being overlooked, with greater focus on addressing physical illness.

The report's author, Professor David Clarke, says dealing with depression must become a priority. "If people are to get maximum health then we have to tackle all of these things together," he said.

Aged care providers going broke, inquiry told

07/04 ABC News | A Senate inquiry has been told that aged care providers are going broke and cannot expand because of inadequate federal funding and a lack of credit from the banks. The peak industry body - the Aged Care Alliance - has told Brisbane hearings into Residential and Community Aged Care that there has been a record number of insolvencies in the sector.

Alliance spokesman and Tricare chief executive Jim Toohey says Commonwealth funding needs to be overhauled. "We simply cannot afford to construct viably in a commercial sense new, modern, purpose-built, single-room facilities under the existing funding system," he said.

He also says banks are not backing new aged care developments despite a growing, ageing population.The not-for-profit charity Blue Care told the hearing that it suffered a $19 million loss last year and will close some operations.

White supremacist concert on Anzac Day 'pure coincidence'

07/04 ABC News | The Returned and Services League (RSL) has expressed anger over plans by a white supremacist group to hold a concert in Perth on Anzac Day.

Blood and Honour Australia's website says it promotes the cause of white supremacy through music. The group plans to hold a concert in Perth on Anzac Day at an undisclosed location.

Child’s wants should not trump child’s best interests

06/04 Australian Christian Lobby | Reports of a state ward sleeping rough while her distraught foster parents of 14 years have no legal right to information about her have again highlighted how Australia’s community welfare system often fails to serve the best interests of the child.

That’s the opinion of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), which today called on State and Territory Governments to examine whether foster parents should be given greater support to uphold the best interests of children in their care.

Read Related Article below

Teenager lives on street, leaving foster mum in torment

Bullying epidemic creating 'own personal hell'

06/04 ABC News | e."Australia's top adolescent mental health experts are calling for action to stem the tide of cyber-bullying and bullying in schools. Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg has told tonight's Four Corners program that someone needs to take the lead on what he considers "the most important public health issue impacting on adolescent mental health in Australia today".

"If you are bullied you're three times more likely to be depressed," says Dr Carr-Gregg."There are standard short, medium and long term impacts of bullying that we see over and over again and they would include really poor self-esteem, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, self-harm, eating disorders and in very rare cases, suicide

Fury at five-month sentence for man who punched pregnant girlfriend in stomach

05/04 Herald Sun | A FIVE-month sentence for a man who kneed and punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach has outraged victim support groups. Kane Elliott Stockton, 25, of Albury, was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, intimidation and damaging property after attacking the woman, who was six months pregnant.

The victim was kneed and punched several times in the stomach, the Sunday Herald Sun reports. She screamed and tried to run for help, but was grabbed, pushed and dragged back inside.... He received a five-month jail sentence with nine months' parole.

Cigarette displays banned at shops

05/04 The Sunday Telegraph | CIGARETTES will no longer be allowed to be displayed behind shop counters under tough new anti-smoking regulations to be introduced from July.

Short-term unemployment rate in Australia jumps by 45 per cent

04/04 AAP | THE number of short-term unemployed has risen by 45 per cent as the global financial crisis bites, figures show.

Centrelink figures reveal the number of people who have been looking for work for less than 12 months jumped 45 per cent to 203,173 across Australia between September 2008 and February this year, the Sun Herald reports.

Teen soapie’s lesbian kiss sparks concerns

03/02 Australian Christian Lobby | Australia’s television channels are continuing to push the boundaries of acceptable programming, with Channel Seven airing a lesbian kiss on teen soapie Home And Away on Tuesday night despite concerns raised by parents and family groups.

A media report on Saturday indicated that the scene was to be censored in response to a viewer backlash, with 100,000 viewers turning off the program and complaints flooding in since the lesbian story line began two weeks ago. However when the scene screened on Tuesday night, it turned out that Channel Seven had only cut part of it and that a lesbian kiss went ahead. Click here for details.

This latest programming decision reflects continuing attempts to ‘normalise’ homosexuality on our television screens. What makes it particularly troubling is that Home And Away is PG-rated and targets an audience as young as nine or 10, who are likely to be confused by watching such a scene.

Pro-Family Perspectives director Angela Conway is among those to have voiced concerns about the program and the sexualised plot lines of teen dramas. "The plot lines that young kids and teenagers should be presented with should be about really authentic relationships that are not just sexualised," she told the Herald Sun in early March.

ACL urges supporters to continue to contact television stations to make your concerns known about material being broadcast. Please click here for a television complaints process brief ACL has put together to assist you (it also includes contact details for Channel Seven and other stations).

Home & Away (again)

Did Channel 7 deceive us?

Having watched Home & Away last night I am left without an answer to that question – we may never know if the lesbian kiss that did indeed take place was less than proposed - but a lesbian kiss it was. One report suggests that it was a false rumour picked up by The Australian. Yet Channel 7 did not deny it to the general public.

Seven's head of creative drama and development, Bevan Lee told a pro homosexual group

“two kisses were filmed - one gentle followed by one "more lusty'' - and, after discussion, it was decided to end the scene after the first kiss. "The decision taken was artistic and had nothing to do with running from the conservative right,'' He said the decision had been made before any controversy over the soapie stars' on-screen relationship.

That fact that a lesbian kiss took place is bad enough, but what makes this scenario a great deal worse is that it was between a female Police Officer in uniform and the very recent victim of a very traumatic crime – male rape and then attempted murder.
If that scenario is not bad enough for very young people to cope with, and parents to get their heads around, the Police officer also let her confused emotions affect her work.

Clearly, the producers desired end result was to show that the initial rejection by the female police officer of the lesbian’s advances was the cause of almost all the problems. Had she accepted this developing ‘relationship’ as 'natural', things could have been very different!

NSW: Forum focuses on 'ageing in changing environment'

01/04 ABC News | Ageing in a changing environment is the theme of the New South Wales rural ageing conference in Broken Hill, starting today. The conference will focus on the impacts of climate change on ageing, as well as social, cultural and political changes.

The president of the Gerontology Association in NSW, Professor Julie Byles, says demographic changes are also having a big impact.

Bushfire disaster could have been a 'forest jihad'

Herald Sun | AN expert on terrorism says the bushfire disaster could have been a "forest jihad". Queensland academic Dr Mervyn Bendle said police had been too hasty in dismissing a possible link, despite a stream of chatter on terrorist websites urging supporters to conduct a pyro-terror attack. Dr Bendle said radical Muslims were being encouraged to switch from spectacular 9/11-type attacks to more achievable arson assaults.

"Pyro-terrorism is inherently low-tech in nature and requires only primitive technical materials to carry out attacks," he said. "It is inexpensive and logistically comparatively uncomplicated."

In a 6000-word essay in the latest conservative journal National Observer, Dr Bendle argues terrorist experts overseas are investigating deliberately-lit forest fires in Israel, Spain, Greece and Estonia. Dr Bendle writes that the bushfire disaster happened just days after Abdul Nacer Benbrika and six others were sentenced for being members of a terrorist organisation. Weeks earlier, the Israeli army had bombed the Gaza strip.

"A successful pyro-terrorist attack executed on a sufficiently large scale significantly destabilises the political and social systems of the target society," Dr Bendle writes.

Morality, the Pope, condoms and HIV/AIDS

The issue above is very related to issues of morality, the Pope, condoms and HIV/AIDS

Condoms are seen as the ‘saviour’ of the human race from HIV/AIDS and other STDs.
Since Pope Benedict told reporters recently that the solution to the AIDS problem is "a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another," the world's media, international AIDS groups, feminist groups and pro-homosexual organisations have gone ballistic.

At the start of the Pope’s recent trip to Africa, he said, "If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem."

Deakin defends Islam-only prayer rooms

24/03 Geelong Advertiser | ISLAM-only student prayer rooms have been defended by Deakin University, contrasting the controversial stance adopted by RMIT.

RMIT has argued it caters well for Muslim students with access to multi-faith rooms.

But Deakin says it is ``vital'' that the religious faith of students is respected.

Centrelink tells Megan Dodd to consider divorcing coma husband

01/04 Courier Mail | THE wife of a man in hospital in a coma was told by Centrelink she would have to divorce him if he was to receive the full disability support pension. Paul Dodd requires around-the-clock care after suffering a brain injury on Christmas Day, 2007.

He fell down a London stairwell on his honeymoon. His wife Megan has spent the past year at her husband's Royal Brisbane Hospital bedside praying for the slightest movement in his body, all the while pleading for assistance from a government she feels "robbed" by.

"On top of the grief of losing him, on top of the endless paperwork, the finances, and the responsibilities of guardianship, the one thing you think you could rely on is that if he needs a full pension that he would get it from Centrelink," Ms Dodd said yesterday.

Training tomorrow's leaders

There is a great need in this nation to assist those students and recent graduates who demonstrate a high potential to become influential leaders for Christ across strategic areas of our nation including politics, law, media, science, education, arts and philosophy.

The Compass program, an eight-day course in Christian worldview, aims to address this need.

For more information and to register interest for 2009, please go to www.compass.org.au .

Lyle Shelton
National Chief of Staff , Australian Christian Lobby