Law enforcement agencies are still

gloating over the success of their big "sting" , how many criminals they have caught, and how much wrongdoing they have prevented. Our state newspaper has a full page picture of one local man. Other places no doubt have similar pictures.

No doubt there are other papers with similar pictures. Oh yes, it is news. It is the sort of news the media loves. No doubt someone will turn it into a fine film one day.

And I thought about the family members, especially the young children who have no idea what a parent has allegedly been doing. Were they frightened by the loud knocks on the door - and the shouting? I wonder what it has done to parent-child relationships?

There have been other things in the news recently. There was the young mother whose premature baby was born in while she was in quarantine due to Covid19 regulations. The baby was in neonatal critical care. Was the mother allowed to see her baby? No. Even though she had twice tested negative and plans were in place to ensure the safety of all she was not even allowed to see her baby. I wonder what that has done for the parent-child relationship too. There are already bonding concerns being raised about babies who have been isolated from their mothers and the way the need to wear masks may be impacting on facial recognition and language development.

A family lost an eight year child in the most tragic of cicrumstances - he drowned while on a school camp. The shattered family was told only ten people could be present at the funeral even though the closest known Covid case was half way across the state. Even after the funeral company suggested holding the funeral outside with everyone wearing masks and people being appropriately "socially distanced" the health authorities refused to budge. I wonder what that has done to the family, especially the siblings? And these are the same health authorities who allow people to attend a football match and condone football teams travelling interstate.

A child had to be medically evacuated out of detention on one of the more remote islands. Her mother is with her. Her father remains in detention with her sister. There are demands for them all to be reunited. Those demands are understandable but the intransigence of the parents has caused the separation. I wonder if they have really thought about the harm being done to their children? 

I am wondering if people are really thinking about children in all of this? Are they thinking about children who have no power to make decisions?