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CANBERRA - The Australian Government has launched a new attack on what it describes as an alarming rise in child abuse reported to authorities around the country.
Families Minister Jenny Macklin has announced plans to develop a national framework to tackle a 45 per cent increase in confirmed cases of child abuse over the past five years.
Status of Women Minister Tanya Pliberseck also yesterday named a new National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children to develop another national plan to reduce domestic violence and sexual assault.
Figures from the Bureau of Statistics show that one in three Australian women suffers physical violence, and one in five experiences sexual violence, over her lifetime.
The latest moves in a broader federal attack on abuse and violence follow the continuing row over an exhibition of photographs of naked children as young as 12 by prominent Australian photographer Bill Henson.
The exhibition at Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was shut down last week and is now being investigated by police.
Despite strong support from the arts community, Henson's exhibition has been widely condemned as child pornography and yesterday ABC radio reported that similar photographs had been removed from the Albury Regional Art Gallery in southern New South Wales.
Releasing a discussion paper on the proposed new framework, Macklin said children must have time to be children, with all the wonder, happiness and innocence that childhood should bring.
"Over recent years the reported levels of child neglect and abuse in Australia have increased at an alarming rate," she said.
"Child abuse has become an issue of national concern, [but] statutory child protection systems are struggling under the load."
Macklin's discussion paper said that while statistics showed that notifications of suspected child abuse and neglect had more than doubled in the past eight years, no fully reliable information existed about the real incidence.
Authorities generally assumed that more cases occurred than were reported.
The figures that were available showed that the number of confirmed cases of children at risk had risen by 45 per cent since 2002-03, with the rates for indigenous children five times higher than others.
Describing indigenous abuse as an issue of national significance, the paper said rates of care and protection orders for Aborigines were seven times higher than national norms, and rates of out-of-home care were more than eight times higher.
The paper said that across Australia there was a high percentage of very young children in the protection system - on average, 65 per cent were younger than 10.
Demand for child protection services had soared and, with frontline staff facing "extraordinary" pressures, many agencies were struggling to find enough qualified staff.
And the paper said that the cost of emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect - beyond the long-term human suffering - was enormous.
A 2003 study estimated the direct cost to the nation at almost A$5 billion ($6.1 billion) a year.
Welcoming the paper and the plan for a national framework, the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect said new moves must focus on prevention.
