Bordering on harmful

STRESSED Gold Coast child safety officers are struggling to protect abused kids due to cross-border red tape, according to the State Opposition.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in January publicly announced she would work with NSW to better protect children as the governments “shared information to support vulnerable families and children”.

But the Opposition main- tains that promise has fallen flat four months on as Coast Child Safety staff declared border issues were still hampering their efforts to protect kids at risk.

Opposition prevention of domestic violence spokeswoman Ros Bates, after a tour of child safety department offices on the Coast, found cross-border issues were at the top of the list of concerns by staff.

Leaked notes show their jobs were being made more difficult due to “interstate bureaucracy” and “the complexity of working with families across the border with daylight savings and partnerships with the NSW police and hospital”.

Staff had revealed interstate orders were not counted on the books but frontline staff had been expected to manage them as part of their normal caseloads.

Ms Bates said child safety officers on the Coast had told her they were frustrated by the lack of action to improve crossborder red tape that was stopping them from tackling child abuse.

“Child abuse doesn’t stop at the border and we need to be working with our New South Wales counterparts to ensure a seamless response,” Ms Bates said.

“We can’t afford to go slow on this issue and it is not something that has just arisen.

“If our police can get special constable status to case criminals across to Tweed, surely our child safety officers could be afforded similar powers.”

Ms Bates said Child Safety officers needed to be able to respond to abuse disclosures at the Tweed Hospital if the child was living in Coolangatta.

The latest revelations occur against a backdrop of a bitter row between Ms Bates and Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman.

Ms Fentiman has been on the Coast announcing several initiatives, including management changes at the $2.1 million Nerang facility and that $1.1 million would be provided to Centacare to run a mobile domestic and family violence support service.

“Members might recall that during the last sitting I spoke about the ‘Negative Nancy’ of our parliament, the member for Mudgeeraba, and I am disappointed to say nothing much has changed,” Ms Fentiman said.

Ms Fentiman claimed staff also had “had enough of negative attitude” after visits by the Coast MP to centres.