I refuse to continue this now inane digression from the topic and my basic questions - who will do the work if NGO's wont, and where do adult survivors of child abuse go if they need help to recover? And why cant they be taken seriously? They really didn't get much of a mention in the discourse.

Congratulations - you win, but seriously, engaging in this type of 'dont discuss the issue' is exactly what is meant by verbal abuse (along with name-calling, humiliation and general derogatory remarks and behaviour.. reminds me of my last spouse... and I took to long to walk away then too

RObert, sorry about delay had to wait until i could post again.continued
4 The police must be made to attend ALL calls when a childs safety is in question,and stay with the child until they report to and get advice from DOCS etc, not just drive off leaving a young child alone, as they did in my case.
5 When an inspection is made of a house where the child is living in dirty or unsanitary conditions, the inspection should be made without prior notice, not give the mother [or father] a weeks notice so she/he can clean everything up just so it looks clean for the inspection.
Your own suggestion of making follow up contact/interviews is also a very good one
6 The family court MUST enforce its own orders especially those placed to ensure the childs safety. I had family court orders in place regarding my access, the harrassement and abuse of people who spoke up for me in court, the verbal abuse of my child and also as mentioned the abandoning of my child alone in the house. The ex broke ALL of these many times and was proven to have done so in court yet the court didn't act. I am in the process of making my own submission to the review of family laws by the AG and i would hope that all on here who really care about the welfare of children do the same.

eyeinthesky, RObert & Cotter,

IDEAS TO REDUCE THE RISK OF ABUSE TO CHILDREN,

1, excellent,

2, excellent and we had one, in QLD during the 60's & 70's, no prizes for guessing who was responsible for removing it after the labour/green coalition was elected in '89. eyeinthesky, if your separation and divorce had occurred, in QLD, before '75, your ex would have been declared "an unfit mother" and registered as such with the then dept of families.

3, excellent, the job of social work, (ideally, social/DOCS workers, would be from church/NGO's, parents, and still happily married to their first partner) needs to be separated from the job of investigating child abuse, which should be a job for police.

4, ideally, police would conduct a joint investigation with DOCS.

5, excellent.

6, this is where it gets interesting. In my case the DOCS workers were a bit more cunning, not as obvious, in their bias, as they were in your case, (eyeinthesky) it is very easy for a corrupt/biased investigator, to make it look, like they are going through the motions, saying all the right things in the right places, etc. This is where it gets into all, government administration going wrong. We need fast, free, open, FOI, appeal, ombudsmen, etc. The Fitzgerald inquiry recommended the "electoral and administrative review commission", to cover corruption/incompetence in all, departments, which worked very well, before Beatty shut it down. Judicial review is another one, but it is all useless, if it is not free of restrictions, so that it can be, fast, inexpensive/legal aid.

Sorry if my placing blame appropriately, upsets you cotter, but, ignoring perpetrators, does not help either. Survivors of child abuse already have their own, self help group, can't remember the acronym right now. (have it at home somewhere, was going to do some work with them) Whether it is getting appropriate funding is another matter, probably not, as my experience of government, is they just love, "ignoring the elephant in the room".