ABC Radio interview

Following Bronwyn Bishop's announcement of her intention to introduce a new policy in her Family and Community Services portfolio.

ABC Radio Darwin ran the story on their afternoon"Drive" program and called upon The Network Against Prohibition to comment.

Taking the call and representing NAP, was Fiona Clarke.

Fi-
How do I feel about Bronwyn Bishop’s proposal to have children of drug addicted parents taken from them and permanently adopted out?

Firstly I believe Bronwyn is playing election games, more “Children Overboard”. I also doubt that it’s ethical for the Chairperson of an ongoing inquiry to make comments based on information given to that inquiry, before they have released any findings.

I struggled with drug problems for many years, and my 3 children are all successful, stable young adults of 17, 25 and 28. When I told my eldest girl about Ms. Bishop’s proposal she was horrified.

“But, that’s stupid. We were never taken from you, now I’m 28 and have a highly paid job in the medical field. Who knows what would have happened to me if I’d been taken from my family – and look at you mum, you came from a perfect, normal family yet you got messed up by drugs.”

I agree. If anything, such a proposal is likely to cause more harm than it prevents. I know that parents with addiction problems can find it difficult to care properly for their children all the time, but if they think they might lose their kids forever they’ll be too scared to ask for help or respite. The problem will be driven underground.

One option is to involve the whole family in treatment programs. Parenting skills could be taught, the children could be realistically educated about drugs so instead of separating the family they can be taught how to live.