20-05-2025
As Queensland launches yet another child safety inquiry, what's going to be different about this one?
What's going to be different about this inquiry?
It's the question those in the child protection system are understandably asking.
This week, the Crisafulli government in Queensland ordered a commission of inquiry into the child safety system.
Another one.
The fact the child safety department even exists is the result of a previous inquiry.
In 2003, Labor premier Peter Beattie tasked the Crime and Misconduct Commission with investigating horrific allegations of child abuse in foster care.
It made 110 recommendations for change.
By 2007, then child safety minister Desley Boyle declared the job done.
"I truly believe we are close now to a system of child protection that will be as good as any in the world," she said.
And yet, five years later another inquiry was ordered.
Within 100 days of winning office, LNP premier Campbell Newman appointed Tim Carmody SC to do a "root and branch" review.
It resulted in an extra $406 million "to help make Queensland the safest place in Australia to raise a child", according to Mr Newman.
Millions of dollars spent, countless hours of testimony, hundreds of recommendations, plenty of good intentions and promises.
And that's not even counting the 1999 Forde inquiry into the abuse and neglect of children in Queensland institutions.
It's like watching a horror movie on a loop, year after year, decade after decade.
Except these stories and the people in them are very real — 12,500 vulnerable children currently living in out-of-home care in Queensland, too many of whom are reporting sexual and physical abuse.
So, why in 2025, are we watching the same events unfold again?
According to David Crisafulli, the latest inquiry — with a budget of $20 million — is needed "to expose failures in the system and the damage it has caused".
Child protection advocates, like PeakCare's Tom Allsop, say the solutions are known.
"It is suffering from a lack of government action and commitment to doing the things we know work."
It is a frustration shared by the National Children's Commissioner Anne Hollands.
"We have looked at these issues again and again and it's time to act on the evidence", she told ABC Radio.
Like those before him, "action" is what Mr Crisafulli is promising.
"The system won't be perfect, we know that, but it can be a lot better than what it is now and we are taking action."
Let's hope this time it works, because as a previous inquiry head Brendan Butler SC noted: "A society can rightly be judged on how it treats its children."
