The ACL compiles a daily media monitoring services of stories of interest relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. See here to read what’s in the news today.
Charities
Social services to go private
Leo Shanahan – The Australian
The NSW government will copy a social policy from Britain that allows private investors to buy bonds in social-welfare programs. Treasurer Mike Baird announced the government would trial the sale of social benefit bonds as a means of delivering social services through the private sector. Under the scheme, private investors would invest in a financial instrument called a social benefit bond and the money would go to schemes addressing social disadvantage.
Children & Family
ACL call for a better deal for Australia’s children
Glynis Quinlan – Eternity
The Federal Government has been called on to set up a Families Commission to provide national leadership in strengthening families following the launch of a new research report revealing the dire plight of many Australian children – with dramatic rises in child abuse and neglect and more than a quarter of 16-24 year-olds having mental disorder
Study finds child sex abuse education is key
Rachel Carbonell – ABC
One of Australia’s peak anti-child sex abuse organisations says it has new research which shows educating children about sexual assault is one of the most effective ways of preventing it. Bravehearts says an analysis of more than 500 of its clients shows a direct link between the education program it runs in schools and a spike in the number of reports it receives about the sexual assault of children.
Stable families, stable society. It’s that simple.
Kevin Andrews – The Punch
In 1998, the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Committee issued a report entitled To Have and To Hold about marriage and family in Australia. Writing the preface to the bipartisan report, I commented: “This report is about strengthening marital relationships. It is about preventing marital distress and the consequent breakdown of relationships. It arises from our concern for children; for their future, their happiness, and their ability to form their own loving and fulfilling relationships.”
Protect kids from fractured families: ACL
7pm Project
Video interview with Jim Wallace on 7pm project
Snapshot of a nation under stress
Natasha Bita – The Australian
One in four households relies on welfare benefits while one in seven is spending more than it earns, as increasing cost-of-living pressures bear down on families. Of the nation’s poorest households, one in 10 went without meals and 7.3 per cent could not afford to heat their homes in winter during 2009-10, according to a six-yearly snapshot of spending by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australians are having to spend more than half their income on the basics – housing, food and transport – as the soaring cost of living bites into spending on life’s luxuries. One in eight households could not pay their bills on time.
Pensioners get rent rise but children better off
Adele Horin – SMH
Child protection won a 5 per cent funding increase in a stringent state budget but single age, disability and carer pensioners will face higher rents in public housing and some foster carers will lose payments.
Classification
Have your say in the classification review
Tracey Lien – Kotaku
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is currently seeking volunteers for a pilot focus group program as part of a review of the Australian classification system, so if you want to help shape the way games, movies, and publications are classified, now is your chance. The classification review is not exclusively for video games. Rather, it is a pilot program that aims to determine community standards. Two groups consisting of 15 volunteers will be asked to view and discuss films, video games, publications and online content, some of which the ALRC has warned may be “offensive, confronting and disturbing”. [Ed. First blog comment is interesting]
Children on Razor’s edge of bad examples
The Daily Telegraph
Tens of thousands of kids under the age of 15 have been watching the brutal Underbelly Razor series. Research from Fusion Strategy shows 79,000 boys aged 0-15 and 67,000 girls aged 0-15 watched the first episode of Underbelly: Razor which featured graphic sex, prostitution, violence and drug taking. A similar number of kids watched the second episode and thousands more watched Underbelly Files: Tell Them Lucifer Was Here earlier this year.
Human Rights
Legal aid lawyers buckle under work stress
Geesche Jacobsen – SMH
A staff health survey within Legal Aid NSW has exposed high levels of stress, concerns about the bullying of criminal lawyers and found that workers compensation claims for its criminal solicitors are running at twice the national average. Coming as the government prepares to review the provision and funding of legal services in NSW, the survey found that 13 per cent of claims within the service are due to mental health problems.
Overseas Aid
US sends emergency aid to North Korean flood victims
Radio Australia
A US aid shipment arrived in North Korea on Saturday with around 90 tonnes of emergency supplies for the flood-hit nation. The aid was paid for by the US government and delivered by the US-based Christian relief group, the Samaritan’s Purse. A US State Department spokeswoman stressed that the delivery was not linked to any political or security issue but was a result of humanitarian concern for the people of North Korea.
Religious Persecution
Life after Assad looks ominous for Syria’s Christian minority
Khalid Ali – Independent
Syria’s more than 2 million Christians account for around 10 per cent of the total population and are just one minority in patchwork of different creeds. But in interviews this week, some of them said many in their community were uneasy about the anti-government protests convulsing their country. According to one activist called Yusef, who used to be an organiser for his local church in Damascus, many Christians have no great love for the Assad regime. Yet large numbers are worried about what will happen if he falls.
Refugees
Julia Gillard enlists Tony Abbott on offshore processing of asylum-seekers
Matthew Franklin – The Australian
Julia Gillard has taken her first step towards enlisting the opposition to restore offshore processing of asylum-seekers, writing to Tony Abbott in defiance of pressure from the Labor Left and the Greens to switch to an onshore regime.
Sexualisation of Society
Nothing radical about mass-market masturbation
Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray – ABC
We live in a world that is increasingly shaped by pornography. Pornography today presents elements of every kind of barbarism imaginable – from overt fascist celebrations of racial hatred, to the killing of animals for sexual entertainment. And yet, for many people it still passes as “cool,” as just a bit of fun, as sexual “lulz,” something to emulate and celebrate.
I am compelled to point out the dangers of articles like “Study finds child sex abuse education is key”.
The reader should be aware of the peer-reviewed research by Dr Jane Rawls in which a male research assistant posed as day care worker with young children. All interactions were filmed. 25% of the children reported being sexually abused by him – including genital touching, the man putting his hands under their upper clothing, of him touching their bottoms, and of him making them touch his – which the video showed did not occur [likely explains the sudden decrease in male primary school teacher numbers].
And the results could easily have been worse. Depending on the way questions were asked, the children’s total accuracy of recall about a variety of situations at their first set of interviews ranged from 13 per cent to nil.
What was especially frightening was that errors appeared to evolve over time with repeated interviews and, for many, were first reported when diagrams of body parts were used“
http://www.thefamilylawdirectory.com.au/article/false-sexual-abuse-allegations-child-interviews-the-family-law-directory.html
In my view ill-founded statements about the prevalence of child sex abuse fans hysteria towards a feminist ideological agenda.
This is clear in the proposed family law amendments which repeal the presumption of innocence for fathers and legalise perjury on the basis of allegations that shared parenting forces children to live with paedophiles.
Such “Hate Men” laws in the USA have resulted in $bilions thrown away on single parent welfare, mass criminalisation and incarceration of fathers, 40% of children fatherless and the unravelling of the social fabric of family.