Kevin, we need to talk about the kids
Cassandra Wilkinson; 25/4/08
Kevin Rudd excited much praise a few weeks ago by taking on the role of a zhengyou which, I gather, is polite Mandarin for “a friend who tells you to get your hand off it”. While I was as proud as the next Aussie to have voted for the bloke who told off the Chinese about Tibet, in China, and in Chinese, there’s room for a little more zhengyou at home. Let’s start with this. Like Whitney Houston, I believe the children are our future. And, until the child rape rate is reduced in this country, I really couldn’t give a pork bun whether we become a republic, ban junk food or abolish the states. The efforts of a half million public servants should be put to this task before we spend a single second devising mandatory daily desk aerobics as required for sedentary workers. According to studies by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and the WHO Collaborating Centre on Evidence and Health Policy in Mental Health at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, the rate of sexual abuse in Australia is estimated at 5.1 per cent of boys and 27.5 per cent of girls.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23594424-7583,00.html