ALECOMM

The Stop Stealing our Children Speech at G20 Summit Brisbane "

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Category: Rallies / Meetings / Protests

Australia is the government child stealing capital of the world. Australian government child protection departments' have stolen more children per head of population than any other western nation. That is not a title to be proud of - it is one of great shame.

Sadly our governments have failed to learn the painful and destructive lessons of the past, and have escalated the rate of child stealing in the last decade on the ludicrous premise that it is better to take a child on an unregistered caseworkers opinion - because they might suffer a risk of harm at some time in the future if left with family; whilst at the same time failing to acknowledge the far greater evidenced harm to children forcibly removed and placed in care that has damaging lifelong consequences both for the child and their family.

While the Federal Government keeps apologising to one stolen generation after another, and acknowledges time and time again the harm state governments have inflicted on vulnerable children and their families for decades caused by the failures of the state child protection systems, nothing has changed.  This is because there is too much power and no accountability in this corrupt industry. Child stealing by governments always has and always will be a total failure as governments are evidenced to be the worst parents of all.

We urgently need a national independent complaints mechanism empowered with both investigative and prosecutorial powers, where parents and children can go with their evidenced complaints of abuse, misconduct, and crimes being committed against them by the child protection industry every day to force accountability.

Australia has had more than eighty inquiries into children in state and territory care in the last 160 years.  All have evidenced the system is a failure. Governments have been more concerned with costs than the care of vulnerable children, making past inquiries more about "damage control" than reform.  Children have been left exposed to a system more interested in economics than their "best interests". Recommendations from these inquiries are not implemented and no one is held accountable for the lives destroyed.

The current Senate Inquiry into OOHC must result in recommendations that will be implemented as a priority of government. Saying sorry for past abuse and failures is meaningless while children are still being needlessly stolen, deaths and abuse of children in care is still happening and still being covered up in Australia’s multi-billion dollar child protection industry - that caters to the whims of the profiteering stakeholders and not our children, and certainly not their families.

Sixty-six percent of the fifty thousand children currently in care nationwide were forcibly removed for emotional harm and neglect.  The high numbers of emotional harm are for children exposed to domestic violence of adult family members - so start protecting the victims and remove the violent perpetrator, not the child.

The high numbers of neglect cases are due mainly to poverty - so help the family out of poverty.  Don’t steal their children.

This illustrates that there are 33,000 stolen children currently in care that should have received help and support to remain safely with their families. Restoration of these stolen children must be a priority of government.

While our governments talk of supporting families to stay together and only taking children as a last resort - we at Alecomm know, in practice those principles are being ignored; that unregistered caseworkers are breaking laws and violating our human rights every day; and no one is held accountable because there are no laws that compel the child protection departments to support families - only laws that support governments to forcibly remove children and keep them till they are 18 - without any evidence or any case review - just the concern or opinion of an unregistered child protection worker (as no evidence in required in the secret care courts were there is no justice for children and families).

The financial facts confirm what we know.  Only around 10% of funding nationally is spent on family support, 30% is spent on solicitors and legal costs fighting families to ensure they don’t get their children back, and the remaining 60% is spent on the costs of Out of Home Care for the stolen children.

The solution is easy - abolish the secret Care Courts, as they are not needed because only about 3% of parents whose children have been forcibly removed are found guilty of criminal abuse or neglect and they are dealt with via the criminal courts.

If there is no evidence that a parent has committed a crime against their children then those families must be helped and supported to stay safely together and with restoration of the children who never should have been stolen the need for any out of home care is minimal so funding figures reverse and 90% of the billions of dollars wasted every year destroying lives by tearing families apart can be invested in prevention of child abuse and family support.

We will now share with you some recent cases that demonstrate the reality of child stealing on the frontline every day all over this country.

Case 1: An indigenous baby was born in early September and then stolen from the maternity ward by FACS NSW.

The child’s indigenous grandmother was approved to supervise contact between the baby and his parents. The child was never harmed and certainly at no risk of harm with the capable and protective grandmother. There were no assessments done, no investigation, not even any risk of harm reports. There was no early intervention or help and support of any kind provided by the department. Sadly last month, just fourty six days after forced removal when this baby was only 6 weeks old, an order was made by a Magistrate well known to be a rubber stamp for the department, who refused to hear any testimony from the family granting final orders of parental responsibility to the Minister until this baby is 18 years old, his care plan end date is the year 2032 with a rapidly decreasing contact regime for his parents over the next 10 weeks and no contact for the grandmother.

That is how Pru Goward’s new legislation, including forced adoptions as the priority for all babies taken into care within six months, is working in practice. This child has been permanently placed with non-indigenous carers that want someone else’s baby.

There was an Aboriginal Practice consultant involved who is a FACS employee, and the solution for this child’s cultural development is that the carers have indicated that they are prepared to learn about Aboriginal culture.

So clearly, this baby has been stolen in record time - just fourty-six 46 days to get a final order until he is 18 years old and under the new permanency, laws will now be earmarked for forced adoption.

Case 2: We have a maternal grandmother who has full custody of one of her young grandson’s.

The mother has some mental health issues and in order for this grandmother to be approved for custody of the grandson she was forced by the department to take out a restraining order against her own daughter causing considerable pain and forced family separation. When the mother gave birth to a second son and the department forcibly removed him they refused to place the new baby with his maternal grandmother and his brother. Instead they took him hundreds of kilometres away to another state and placed him with a very distant relative of the father who was a stranger and is not known to the rest of this large family. The department calls this a kinship placement. For over two years this grandmother has fought unsuccessfully for custody of her new grandson and at the very least some contact with herself and his brother. Contact has been denied so far as the department took the view that it was not in the best interest of the child.

However when you study the case notes, it becomes very clear that the carers of the new baby are against facilitating contact. So the best interest of the child is actually the wishes of the Foster carer and most certainly not in the best interest of either children or their grandmother.

They get away with using and abusing the term “in the child’s best interest” because there is no legal definition for this term in Care and Protection Legislation. This term was first used by Adolf Hitler and has been exploited by child protection departments ever since.

So basically it can and does mean whatever an unregistered caseworker wants it to mean and rarely from our experience are decisions about children in care made in their best interests. So both these brothers are denied contact with each other, one raised by a loving grandmother and the other raised in, care isolated from his entire family in another state hundreds of kilometres apart.

Case 3: A young indigenous boy heading for a forced adoption thanks to Pru Goward’s evil social eugenics legislation that was made law in March in NSW.

He is the youngest of his mother’s four boys. The first three boys are in her care and have always remained in her care. However, late in the pregnancy for her fourth baby she was having some mental health issues from past childhood trauma. Rather than helping and supporting this mother, DOCS stole her fourth baby and placed him with a non-indigenous white foster carer, who is single and wanted a baby.

In stealing her son, this mothers recovery was severely impeded - which is understandable because even if you had no mental health issues before your baby was stolen, you sure will have them after the department tears your family apart.

Since this mothers recovery she has fought for the return of her fourth son without any success and has only been allowed contact with him four times a year. His extended family has been denied any contact. The reason that this mother has not been successful with restoration or even more contact is because the foster carer has bonded with this young boy and wants to keep him so has done everything she could to prevent the mother having more contact and even illegally has given this boy her own surname.

The department have supported the carer, and the care court rubber stamped what the department wanted and denied restoration to his mother and three brothers because they decided it was not in the child’s best interest as “he was settled in his placement and had a bond with the foster carer”.

This situation is very common, while foster carers have no legal rights and are supposed to care for children only until they are able to return to their families, in reality they hold far too much power and control over the children in their care and obstruct restoration to families to meet their own selfish needs to have someone else’s child - and the department not only allows the wishes of foster carer’s to form the basis of their decisions, but often support the foster carer’s to get what they want.

The foster carer now wants to proceed to adoption and the department of course are supporting the foster carer and now that forced adoptions are legal it is up to us to raise our voices and use our keyboards to help this mother fight to save her son from forced adoption and have him rightfully restored to his indigenous family. So despite all the propaganda from Pru Goward about indigenous children being exempt from forced adoption because it was not acceptable to culture, it is clearly about to happen.

Forced adoption should be outlawed not made legal. Adoption is for orphans not children that have loving families.

Case 4: A mother, who was university educated and very talented in the arts, developed some mental health issues.

After the birth of her only child, her symptoms exacerbated as they often do with the hormonal changes in pregnancy. She was placed on quite a lot of medication by the hospital mental health team, and her husband was very concerned about the side effects of this medication that at times caused his wife to be drowsy and affected her balance. He became quite vocal in his objections about the medications being prescribed for his wife.

He then had to leave work to care for his wife and new daughter. One day his wife slipped on their tiled floor and was injured so he took her to hospital where she presented as being very anxious and they ended up admitting her to the mental health unit under the care of the psychiatrist the father had concerns about for overmedicating his wife causing the balance problems that resulted in her fall.

Once his wife was admitted he took his young daughter home to care for her. Next thing the police and department arrived, and forcibly remove his daughter because the psychiatrist who did not like the father decided to put in a report that he suspected the father had caused the injuries to his wife that were sustained in the fall.

The psychiatrist then placed his wife under the care of the public guardian so the state had control of her and her finances and scheduled her under the Mental Health Act so he had control over her treatment rendering the husband powerless. The allegations were false and his wife testified to the fact that he was a loving caring husband and father and had never been violent. He was also cleared by the police investigation.

However, there is no justice in care court at all because no evidence is required and right from the start the department sought an 18-year order and the department got what it wanted. These parents have lost their only daughter, who has been sentenced to foster care till she is 18 and they could not even appeal the case to the district court where they would have won as that jurisdiction does require evidence because the public guardian was still controlling the family’s finances and refused to release their own money so they could pay a good solicitor to get their daughter back. His daughter has been abused in care and no one is held accountable. The father was only granted contact four times a year.

Contact with your child only four times a year is grossly inadequate and has been a common order handed down by Care Courts for the past decade and I have struggled to find any research on how this phenomenon began. It appears that someone high up in the department pulled that figure out of the air to suit them as the standard baseline as the number of children in out of home care skyrocketed to unmanageable numbers. It is certainly not in the best interest of any child or family.

Case 5: A mother was a victim of domestic violence and she left her husband and set herself up with her three children in a new location.

Her ex-husband was having access visits with the children as mutually agreed and arranged safely via other family members. Her ex-husband tracked her down one night, drove his car into her home, and abducted the three young children. No one would help her to get her children back. The police said it was a domestic kidnap; there was nothing they could do despite the violent crimes her ex-husband had committed and informed her she needed to make an application to the Family Law Court. She was not eligible for legal aid and did not have enough money for a solicitor to make such an application.

Meanwhile the ex-husband left the oldest child with her maternal grandmother because he wanted to spend time with his new girlfriend and they were not getting on so the mother was able her eldest daughter back. Then the two youngest children were found at about 4am one morning by police near an ATM machine abandoned, so police called DOCS. The father and his girlfriend were located under the influence of drugs, but instead of returning the children to their mother and sister, the department took a one-year order and placed them in foster care. They promised in care plans that they would assist the mother to restore the children to her care and outlined how they would do this. They also required the mother to do a number of courses including domestic violence education. The mother did all they asked and more and had the care of her eldest daughter all this time with unsupervised and overnight contact with the two children in care every second fortnight. However, the department did nothing they promised to do. Then despite promising that the mother could have the children for the school holidays, DOCS refused when the time came. Therefore, the mother made an application for her children to be returned. The department not only opposed the mother’s application but blatantly colluded with the ex-husband who did not want the children but did not want the mother to have them to the point they invited him to their office and typed up and filed for him an affidavit that totally defamed the mother and was full of outright lies.

Now armed with the false allegations of a spiteful violent ex-husband the department have now made an application to take an 18 year order on the 2 young children but have no concerns for the eldest child that remains in the mothers care. The mother is worried sick about her children and has evidenced that they have been abused in foster care but that is being ignored. Because the department has dragged this matter out for over two years now they are saying it is not in the children’s best interest to unsettle them from their placement and return them to the mother.

Like so many other victims of domestic violence this mother has not received any help or support from the department they are just tearing her family apart and taking her children until they are 18.

Case 6: Four indigenous children living with their parents on a property out of town.

On the Friday night of the June long weekend when the father was home alone with the 4 children as the mother had not yet returned from town, five police officers and a couple of DOCS workers arrived without warning to forcibly remove the children. The reason was not that the parents were a risk to the children but another man living in his own house on the same property was considered to be a risk, and the department falsely claimed that they had left one of their children alone unsupervised with this man.

In fear and shock the father picked up his two youngest babies and held onto them trying to argue that this allegation was false. The police forcibly removed the children from his arms and then arrested him for resisting police in front of his children who were all screaming for their dad. Therefore, this father now has a criminal record just for trying to hold onto his babies.

The children were separated and placed with strangers in foster care. The 2 oldest went through 4 placements and the 2 youngest had 3 placements until they were all placed together in a residential facility that is only approved for children aged 12 to 17 but these children were aged 1 to 8 and had to contend with the instability of a rotating roster of staff.

Meanwhile the department were promising restoration but at the same time made an application for a 2 year order and the day before the first court hearing legal aid informed the parents that they were withdrawing their grant because they decided there was no merit in their case – in other words Legal Aid had prejudged the case and decided the parents could not win so they would not fund their defence. This is happening more and more. So the parents appeared in court by themselves with no idea what to do and the department got an interim custody order. It was at this stage that the mother contacted Alecomm and I began working with these parents to help them to fight to get their children back.

A family support worked from an NGO had been engaged to work with the parents and her reports were honest, fair and in their favour, and the parents requested a copy of her reports, and after some reluctance they were provided. I prepared and Affidavit of evidence to defend these innocent parents which included this report and shortly after it was filed I received a request to support a professional because the department had made up false allegations against them and requested they be removed from a case or the funding for the NGO would be withdraw as this worker was disrespecting the department by supporting the parents and they were on the cusp of losing the order because of her reports that had been provided to the parents who then filed them as evidence in and affidavit which shocked the department as they should not have been given to the parents.

I then met this professional intensive family support worker to help her respond and support her through the process of fighting for her job and to save her career only to discover that it was this very case which we were involved.

I then became privy to the inside corruption in this case and it was shocking. This kind of corruption is going on every day and we see it constantly in the cases we deal with but this evidence was a gift.

Finally, after months of fighting the department, these four indigenous children were returned home last week. None of this was in the best interest of these children who are all now very traumatized after months in care were several were very sick for most of that time. Without our help and support there is no doubt that these unrepresented parents would have lost their children and this is typical of what is happening all round the nation every day and how children are being stolen.

Legal Aid decided the case had no merit when in fact it was winnable and had a tonne merit.

False allegations are common in Care Court matters, and w have yet to read an affidavit written by a caseworker that does not contain defamation of parents, false allegations, and outright lies.

Stealing children is the most drastic and costly, intrusive act a government can carry out.

It is time to scrap the failed child protection systems run by the states and territory governments and for the Australian Federal Government to take responsibility for our children.

Sorry is meaningless, Sorry means you don’t do it again and the states and territories have proven they can’t get it right so the federal government has a duty of care to create one national set of laws and a new and better system that is just and based on evidence and best practice that has independent accountability to ensure integrity.

The only people benefiting in this multi-billion dollar Child Protection industry are the profiteering stakeholders especially the NGO's currently before the Royal Commission for their past and ongoing abuse of vulnerable children in care.

Innocent children and families who have committed no crime are being traumatised daily by the forced removal of their children. The failed policy of child stealing by governments has to stop. Families must be supported to stay together and restoration of our stolen children must be the first priority of government, in the best interest of children, families, and society.

So today, we call for the governments of Australia to stop stealing our children and bring our stolen children home.