I am amazed at the double standards politicians seem to think we have towards the abuse of children.

A royal commission is currently investigating the way individuals in various organisations treated children who reported incidents of sexual abuse and there is widespread condemnation of some Catholic clergy who failed to protect those children.

The accusation is that perpetrators were simply moved to other locations and, therefore, the children in those locations were placed in danger of being abused.   

On the other hand, our politicians seem to firmly believe the general public supports them in making laws allowing other children, some born in Australia, to be forced to return to places where they were abused.

Both major political parties persist in pushing this policy as the only way to deter people smugglers and prevent people from drowning at sea.

As a Catholic, I am disgusted by the response of certain bishops to the children who looked to them for protection.

Anyone who knowingly places a child in such danger should be held accountable, regardless of their position.

It seems that a major reason for moving perpetrators around was to protect the reputation of the church.

However, that choice of action did far more damage than an honest admission that the church consists of imperfect human beings ever would.

We now need to forget about our reputation, accept the harm these individuals caused, and get on with compensating their victims. Then we will get the reputation we deserve.

As a voter, I am disgusted by the policies of both major political parties that place children in danger of mental, physical and sexual abuse. It seems that the major reason for handing these children over to their torturers is to gain the vote of people they think will support the ‘you have to be cruel to be kind’ policy: in other words, using children as scapegoats to gain, or maintain, power. Whether the politicians have correctly judged Australian voters as agreeing to using children as scapegoats will show up at the next election.

I don’t know the answer to the difficult problem of ‘stopping the boats’, that’s what we pay politicians to do, but I cannot accept any solution that deliberately harms children.  

Bob Myers, Warrnambool

With the progressive implementation of the federally funded National Disability Insurance Scheme, it appears that the Andrews government has resolved to hand over the provision of accommodation services for intellectually disabled people from its Department of Health and Human Services, to the non-government sector, including both the for-profit and not-for profit providers.

Many family members of current DHHS clients are very concerned about the proposed change. They contend that the possibility of replacing  DHHS supervised staff will break the continuity of care and support for residents currently in DHHS residences.

In the metropolitan centres, DHHS has had very stable staffing in individual units over many years. There is much greater use of casual staff and a higher turnover in the non-government sector. 

Many of the residents involved in the proposed change  were once clients at Kew Cottages, one of the last large institutions for disabled people in the state, which was eventually closed in 2008, more than 10 years after nine residents lost their lives in a disastrous fire.

Dr Denis Napthine, when Minister for Community Services was instrumental in having new units constructed.

The public sector has always received higher levels of funding than the private sector and as a consequence, the latter is insufficiently funded to support clients with high and complex needs.  Instances have arisen already where some clients have had to return to the care of DHHS from the non-government sector, because there was insufficient funding to deal with their challenging behavioral needs. 

DHHS currently employ many highly skilled and experienced mature age staff. Clients risk losing these highly valued staff members if public disability services are privatised and staff are forced onto lower wages and conditions, including split shifts. DHHS also has minimum qualifications and staff classification structures, which encourage staff to skill up and maintain standards. This is not the case with all service providers, who make much use of younger, inexperienced casual staff. 

DHHS has written in to its Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with staff that all houses must have a house supervisor, with qualifications matching the needs of the residents.

There are also very highly experienced Regional Operations Managers who each over- see five houses and their supervisors. 

Non-government operators increasingly require one House Supervisor to manage up to three separate houses.

There tends to be a very high turnover of service managers, with some houses having had approximately four different people in this role in several years.

At the time of the transfers from Kew, residents and their families were assured that their new residence was to be theirs for life.

Although the Andrews government appears totally committed to the transfer, family members of the residents involved will continue to campaign for a retention of the status quo.

Gordon Curran, Woodford

What a shame The Standard's report into the Dundonnell windfarm completely omitted any mention of the devastating environmental impact this proposed wind farm will have on the iconic brolga.

This wind farm is proposed in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas for brolga within Victoria with five breeding sites and seven flocking sites within the immediate vicinity.

Trustpower's own reports show that there will be at least 10 brolga killed and the Minister is happy to accept this as collateral damage.

The compensation plan to replace these dead brolga (to maintain the zero net impact requirement of the Government's own brolga guidelines) is non­-existent.

A plan will be developed at some later date subject to the satisfaction of the responsible authority which is Moyne Shire.

The council has already submitted to both the Senate Inquiry and to the Dundonnell EES Inquiry that it does not have the funds or expertise to monitor environmental compliance of wind farms.

In other words, no compensation for the dead brolga will be ever forthcoming.

It is totally unacceptable to expect local councils and consequently their ratepayers to monitor compliance of complicated environmental plans on behalf of the state.

No species is “protected” when slaughter of individuals is an acceptable part of a proposed development.

One hundred turbines at Dundonnell will not alter climate change, but a large number of dead brolgas will greatly impact on that species. Wind farms should be built in areas without brolga habitat, removing the collision risk entirely from any development.

The Brolga Recovery Group believe the Minister should reassess the EES for this wind farm using all the facts and information that has been supplied to him. His current assessment has relied on flawed recommendations from DELWP, whose environmnental division did not even bother to come to the panel hearing.

Susan Dennis, president Brolga Recovery Group, Kolora