1/8/2003

The Department of Family Service in Queensland Australia is in crisis mode.

Calls for the Minister and former Minister Anna Bligh to resign, would be music to the ears of some within the department- It takes the heat off them.

Change the Minister- leaving the same faces in the department and the children in Queensland foster care at risk.

What is needed and has been for more years then I can remember - is a

Royal Commission into the Department.

This is something myself and so many have been saying for years. The problems with the department can't be laid at the feet of the Minister of the day. There have been so many Minister from both sides of the parliament running this same department both Labour and Liberals. The fault lies deep in the bowels of the department - entrenched over many, many years.

While this continues, the children in foster care will suffer.

Call a Royal Commission and you will have so many good people within the department game to come forward to allow the truth to finally get out from behind locked doors.

In 1997, I was asked to consult for the department of Family Service by the then Minister Kevin Lindguard. Given my background with indigenous people.

I went into the department instead of consulting (which would have kept me on the outside) with in two weeks I found myself fighting this department and the people in it.

It was the time I found why the department doesn't work.

At the end of my six months when told they would like to get me back again.

I said I would work for Geoff Guest from Petford for nothing before I would ever work for that department again. If ever a crisis was needed to call a Royal Commission this would be it. The Minister now at the centre to this crisis, Anna Bligh in my humble opinion still owns Geoff Guest a public apology for her statement in parliament.

I did what I said I would do, at great expense to myself. We may not have saved Petford, but we kept Geoff alive.

This department all but destroyed a man who had given his life to protecting children at risk. A man who gave these children the best and often only chance they had.

This was not the first time I had witnessed first hand this happening. Leaving me to wonder- how many others this department had destroyed.

I have watched over the years, so many lives destroyed by department people caught up in their own power struggle. A struggle which has nothing to do with the people they are supposed to be helping. People so caught up in the power within the department, that most time and energy is spent there and not on the people they are suppose to be caring for, as I found out in 1997. My time which should have been spent on setting up cottage industries for indigenous people, was spent defending Geoff Guest against the department.

This was not the first time I was aware of this power within the department, and to this day it makes me sick to think back to a few years before and how evil this department can be. A small girl would still be alive today, but for the power within the Department of Family Service. If you want to know what this department can do, take the time to read this. Now all but forgotten, by the department as they trample on other lives, this case is one of the worse and still affects the lives of the people involved.

Chapter 9

If ever there was a need for a Royal Commission this was it. How many more lives will be destroyed before we all wake up?

Stop blaming the Minister bite the bullet and call for the Royal Commission.

Only then will you clear out the department, face the truth and give children in foster care the chance they deserve. The best thing Anna Bligh and the Premier can do is allow a Royal Commission - if they don't we need to ask - what do they have to hide??

There are answers and solutions, some of them very simple. One example, the department of Family Service should be like the Police and Emergency services.

Family crisis and problems don't happen between 9-5 so why does the department that serves them, work these hours???? That I can never understand. But the time they become involved,lots of time they are too late.

I urge all indigenous people- who have more to do with this department then any others, to stand up and shout till your voices are heard, A Royal Commission is what you want for the children of Queensland, not a new Minister.

Kerry Bowden
Global Children's Alliance
One Mind One Voice.
A Famility of Humanity
PS: Caitlin say