14 February 2001

Govt To Spend Another Year Ignoring Desperate Children

There is a crisis in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, but the Government continues to ignore thousands of increasingly desperate children, National's Social Services spokesperson Bob Simcock said today.

"Since Labour and the Alliance came to power there has been an outpouring of public outrage and passionate concern over the plight of abused children. And since Labour came to power they have built a massive waiting list for the Child, Youth and Family Services. Yet neither the Prime Minister's dreary statement to Parliament this week, nor the Minister of Social Services speech outlining the Government's plans for 2001, once mentioned those children.

"So far in this so called 'compassionate' Government's term we have seen the waiting list at CYFS double, with around 4,000 children now queuing to see a social worker. And for every one of those children there is a family that has been thrown into chaos.

"Now private welfare organisations have had to demand that the Government allow them to try and lend some help to this crippled Government department, which is struggling to cope with an unprecedented number of suspected child abuse cases.

"In spite of public anger this Government shows no sign of any intention to allocate sufficient resources to get CYFS out of the mire and protect our most at-risk children.

"From the avoidance we've witnessed in this first week of parliament, the public can rightly conclude that this Government's second year will again only offer syrupy rhetoric about the tragedy of child abuse. Tragically the Prime Minister has decided that there are no votes in protecting our children," Bob Simcock said.

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