COURTS TO GAIN MORE POWER OVER ABUSED CHILDREN

The NSW Cabinet today is expected to approve changes to child
protection laws, allowing courts to take young children permanently
from parents who refuse to end their abuse or neglect.

The proposals make the rights of children to supportive and caring
environments explicit and paramount and overturn decades of welfare
policy that insisted on keeping families together, sometimes with
tragic results for children.

The Premier, Mr Carr, strongly supports the changes recommended by his
Minister for Community Services, Mrs Lo Po', and is also understood to
want adoption spelt out in the legislation. The changes are additional
to the December 1998 child protection legislation, which has not been
proclaimed.

Opponents of further changes proposed by Mrs Lo Po' argue they are
unnecessary because it is already implied that the rights of children
are paramount over those of their parents.

Mrs Lo Po', however, has insisted that the rights be explicit and has
rejected criticisms that her stance is populist and
unresearched.

Sources said Mr Carr was keen to see that proclamation of the 1998
legislation was not further delayed.

The draft exposure bill, due before Parliament this week, signals the
start of formal community consultation on the Lo Po' plans. They
include the trial Drug Court being able to order testing of parents, a
function that will later pass to the Children's Court.