Two months after first promising to release the expert panel review, the Palaszczuk Labor Government must come clean and release investigation reports into the Child Safety Department’s handling of Mason Lee prior to his death.
LNP Shadow Minister for Child Safety Ros Bates said Annastacia Palaszczuk and Shannon Fentiman must make good and release the reports and finding into Mason Lee including the Queensland Family and Child Commission final report.
“Last November, Shannon Fentiman looked Queenslanders in the eye and promised to release the expert panel review in January – and still nothing,” Ms Bates said.
“Queenslanders deserve answers and we deserve to know how the system failed Mason Lee to ensure no other child faces the same fate.”
Ms Bates said the Department was hurting and the Minister’s previous scapegoating of frontline staff had been unfair.
“Labor can come out and announce more child safety officers, but they will mean nothing if we can’t recruit to fill existing placings,” she said.
“We need to ensure we have the right laws and procedures in place to ensure this never happens again.”
Ms Bates said Labor should be horrified by the latest performance numbers and act before the situation worsens.
“Based on the most recent numbers, 11 per cent of the most critical cases requiring a 24-hour response aren’t being seen to on time,” she said.
“On top of that, 74 per cent of at-risk children who should be seen within the recommended 5-10 day period are also being missed – this just can’t go on.
“Queensland is the second worst performing state in Australia – we’re even behind South Australia where there was a Royal Commission into child safety.
“We know from the leaked October data that the story only gets worse, with almost 4,000 cases of suspected child abuse being stuck in backlogs across the state.
“After two years of inaction, Annastacia Palaszczuk and Shannon Fentiman must fulfil their promise and release the Mason Lee report immediately so we can identify failings within our child protection system and ultimately make it stronger.”
