Exasperated police were called “more than 50 times” to a trashed house where abandoned Indigenous children were fending for themselves, and alerted government authorities “dozens of times” without action being taken – laying bare the scandalous failure of Western Australia’s child protection system. Despite devastating accounts of sexual abuse, neglect and squalor, it took until just recently for officials to undertake an urgent clean-up of the house in Frisby Court, South Hedland, finally prompted by media attention. WA Child Protection Minister Jess Stojkovski left the wealthy Pilbara mining town after a hastily arranged visit to investigate the startling living conditions, while federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said she had reached out to her state colleagues to find out “what’s going on”. Liberal frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price accused the child-protection system of being “morally bankrupt”.
“Children are being left in utter neglect, dysfunction, allowed to be murdered by their own mother when their grandmother has begged child protection over and over and over again to protect those children,” the senator told News24. “They’re not listening to Aboriginal people who are seeing this first-hand, living this experience, begging to be able to protect their own grandchildren for crying out loud.” The scandal erupted three weeks ago when the media revealed horrifying evidence of the Department of Child Protection’s dereliction of duty towards the three murdered Hawke children in 2022. The crisis escalated recently when up to 15 neglected children, the youngest aged five and seven, were found to be living alone without parents at a derelict house in South Hedland. Police officers on the ground told the media the local DCP office had known “for at least nine months, if not years” that the street urchins of Frisby Court were living at the mercy of drug dealers and sexual predators in putrid conditions.
One officer said police had notified the Hedland DCP “dozens of times” that the children were at imminent risk of physical and emotional harm. Neighbours recently reported the arrival of a cleaning team and later the removal of two skip bins piled with household detritus. Photos showed a couch being removed and scattered rubbish being taken away from the property, which was in a far cleaner state by the end of the day. Residents said the parents of three of the children appeared to have “shot through”. Neighbour Ian Beagle, 68, said the house was “very quiet”. “I saw three young children break into the house first thing, but I have no idea how many kids are currently inside, if any” Mr Beagle said. “The place looks suddenly deserted. There have been cops in the street constantly, but I’ve seen no people that resemble child protection workers.”
The scandal took centre stage in the WA parliament with Ms Stojkovski conceding that the department’s inquiries into South Hedland had taken too long. “Although child-safety investigations are a comprehensive process that do require engagement with families and building trust, in this case the child safety investigation has taken too long” she said. “The department is working urgently to conclude this investigation.” Ms Stojkovski said she had directed the Department of Communities’s most senior child-protection practitioner to oversee all child-safety investigations and intensive family-support cases in Port Hedland for the rest of this year “to ensure that senior direction on complex cases”. Grilled on whether she had visited the Frisby Court house at the centre of the revelations, Ms Stojkovski said she had visited the street not once but twice – but did not specify whether she had visited the actual house.
“While there are some concerning aspects about Frisby Court, I do need to refute the claims that up to 15 children are being regularly unsupervised for days at a time. I did not find evidence of this occurring as suggested,” she said. During question time, Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas asked Premier Roger Cook: ‘Will you now intervene to ensure your government puts child safety before everything else, including achieving targets and indigenous family reunification at all costs? Mr Cook replied: “Child protection is one of our highest priorities. I commend the Minister for Child Protection for taking the initiative to go to Port Hedland … to talk to the people, to talk to the agencies, to assure ourselves that those agencies are working together in a co-ordinated way to make sure we undertake one of the most important tasks of any state government.”
Data tabled in parliament revealed the DCP South Hedland office was understaffed, with only two-thirds of child protection practitioner roles currently filled. One role has been sitting vacant for 138 days. Responding to questions from opposition MP Julie Freeman, parliamentary secretary representing the minister for child protection Pierre Yang said just 9.6 of the 14.4 full-time equivalent child protection practitioner roles in the South Hedland office were filled at present. He revealed the government was flying in more practitioners to bolster the office. “The department continues proactive recruitment for these vacancies across the Pilbara district,” Mr Yang said. “Two senior development practitioners arrived in Port Hedland today and a senior child safety practitioner and child safety practitioner will arrive tomorrow to assist the workforce.” He told parliament the average caseload for child protection caseworkers in the Pilbara was 10.77 per caseworker.
He said the department’s statewide relieving team had been deployed to the Pilbara 10 times in the past 12 months to provide assistance and support to child protection staff, spending about 11 weeks in total in the region. Ms Stojkovski had scrambled to meet the Hawke children’s grandmother, Dorothy Papertalk, who for years had been calling for an inquest into DCP failures to keep her “grandies” safe before they were murdered in a meth-fueled frenzy by their mother. Ms Papertalk, 57, said she was whisked away in a “big white car” to talk with “six government whitefellas”. “I shook the minister’s white hand with my black one, and told her: ‘I want my inquest. I want to know why the DCP wouldn’t help me rescue my sunshine’s. Go back to your records and see what the DCP did to my grandies. I want to know why the DCP thought 3 black kids were not as important as 3 white ones. It felt good to say that to her face after all this sadness. I hope this woman is strong enough to do something to save our little ones from the lives they don’t deserve.”
Asked whether she had apologised to Ms Papertalk, Ms Stojkovski said she had conveyed her condolences saying, “I’m sorry for your loss”. There was no apology however for how the Hedland DCP repeatedly failed to listen to Ms Papertalk’s appeals – and those of police – to have the Hawke children removed into the safekeeping of their grandmother’s care. “As I said in parliament,” the minister said, “the department does acknowledge there were some findings in that review and they have been working towards changing those findings.” After hearing Ms Stojkovski was not offering an apology for her department’s negligence, Ms Papertalk began to cry: “It is four years since I buried my sunshine’s and I want that Minister to apologise for what her department didn’t do to protect my grandies from harm. I want that apology before she gets back on that fancy plane.” Ms Stojkovski’s plane had already taken off for Perth.
Port Hedland elders were incensed that the minister made no effort to speak with them about the child-protection scandal that threatens her career. Said Kariyarra elder, Pat Mason: “She should be removed from her seat because she’s not acting in the interests of the needy and deprived children of this town. Did she make any effort to talk to the Frisby kids? Did she come and talk to us? Her feet barely touched the ground and she was off again. “If the police have been to that house more than 50 times this year, and the DCP has done nothing, then that minister should have gone in there and sacked the lot of them. And if she’s too gutless to do that, then Roger Cook should get rid of his Child Protection Minister. Enough is enough. How many kids needs to die in this town for this government to do something?” Nyamal-Wanman elder Linda Doogiebee said she was “furious” that the minister didn’t make arrangements to speak with Port Hedland’s indigenous community in her six daylight hours spent in town.
“This is very disrespectful to us, given we are talking about vulnerable children,” said Ms Doogiebee. “This government needs to work closely with local indigenous people and that minister didn’t come near us.” Internal DCP documents leaked to the media show the Case Practice Review of its involvement in the deaths of the Hawke children was completed in July 2024, more than two years ago. It contained at least 11 adverse findings against the DCP, including the “failure of the team to contact Dorothy Papertalk” and the “failure to adequately partner with Dorothy Papertalk and understand how the department could support her”. DCP insiders who have spoken to the media say “nothing has changed” in the two years since, pointing to the discovery of the abandoned Frisby Court children as further proof of the Hedland DCP’s inability to keep vulnerable kids safe from sexual abuse, domestic violence and neglect.
Senator McCarthy said she had reached out to her West Australian counterpart to find out “what’s going on”. “We know that we should expect all children in Australia to be safe,” she said. Senator Price said the government was not taking the issue seriously, prioritising a “child’s culture over their actual safety”. Reflecting on allegations of abuse and violence against children in Port Hedland, Senator Price recalled how she begged the Senate just months ago to protect Indigenous children following the alleged abduction, murder and sexual assault of her five-year-old niece Kumanjayi Little Baby in the Northern Territory. “But evidently, it fell on deaf ears to take these issues seriously when it comes to Indigenous children in this country,” Senator Price said. “I’ve said it for years the child protection system is utterly morally bankrupt for starters, and it’s broken, and in Western Australia in particular, if you look at the principles around child protection … it’s ideologically driven.”
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports