Child Abuse Risk Almost Double Under Labour

ACT New Zealand Deputy Leader and Social Welfare Spokesman Dr Muriel Newman today released new information showing that the number of children in serious danger of being abused has doubled since Labour became the Government.

"Answers to my written Parliamentary Questions have revealed that, in the 1999-2000 year, CYF classified 10,330 child abuse notifications as `Urgent'. That number has skyrocketed to 21,505 in the 2003-04 year - an increase of 108 percent," Dr Newman said.

"Meanwhile, the more serious abuse notification category, those labelled `Critical', has increased 30 percent - from 3,475 in 1999-2000, to 4,494 in 2003-04.

"Further, these figures are part of an overall increase in the number of children coming to CYF's attention. In 1999-2000 CYF deemed 23,232 cases as requiring further action. By 2003-04 that had leapt 60 percent, to 37,160.

"With almost 14,000 extra children at serious risk of abuse, or being abused already, these numbers show that the current CYF model isn't working and is simply an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff.

"Only a forward-thinking, one-stop welfare agency - linking police, education, health and welfare - with a goal of reducing child abuse in the community will have the ability to turn around the escalation in child abuse that we are now seeing," Dr Newman said.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>