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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 914 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

competency-based points up along the way. They can get their provisional licence through that process. There is a competitive advantage in the marketplace then for accredited instructors. That is something they have to lose. That is a reason why they have to act with a higher degree of propriety and a higher degree of appropriateness towards their students.

There is also another element, an element which Ms Tucker referred to in an interjection and which I think ought to be taken seriously, and that is the question of training. Training is part of the accreditation process for instructors. Ms Tucker suggested that an appropriate component of that training might be some training to do with issues associated with sexual harassment and appropriate behaviour towards learners. I agree with her. These people are going to be in positions of trust in relation to students and they are going to be in positions where they are going to be alone with students. I think it is perfectly appropriate that there be some training, just as I would expect there to be training for anybody who is involved in a public contact-type of job.

I think that is something that the Registrar of Motor Vehicles ought to take up in designing the training. I think it is a good suggestion. It is all the more reason why using an accredited instructor might be a good thing. You can know with confidence, if this suggestion is taken up, that you have someone who has at least some understanding of those issues and who has been given some training in relation to those matters. If you use a non-accredited instructor, as Ms Horodny would have you use, you have no assurance of that. You have no assurance that they have any particular skills in teaching or any particular understanding of issues to do with sexual harassment or exploitation of people from non-English speaking backgrounds. You have no assurance of any of those things. I cannot see how insisting on everyone doing a test, which puts pressure on people away from the competency-based approach, will make things better or will cure any of the problems that Ms Horodny is concerned about.

Mr Speaker, let me reiterate a basic piece of philosophy about this. What we are talking about with this learn to drive system and this system for getting people provisional licences is bringing driver training up to date with the rest of the education system. When you send your kid to kindergarten the Government does not come in at the end of the year and give the student an examination to make sure that they got whatever they were meant to get out of kindergarten. We trust the professionalism, the competency and the qualifications of the people doing the teaching. Certainly, they do not have open slather. There are registration processes, there are training criteria, there are a whole range of rules about who is allowed to teach; but then we trust to their professionalism.

When you go to university, Mr Speaker, it depends on what you study. I did lots of subjects at university. We were trained and I learnt a great deal in the course of my studies, but nobody put me through an examination at the end of it. The system had a self-supporting energy which ensured that students learnt. Certainly, universities are also open to the kinds of abuses that Ms Horodny talked about - sexual harassment, exploitation of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and lots of other problems. We know they happen. I know they happen. I have friends who have experienced those sorts of problems. But I do not see that sticking examinations at the end of every university course will solve those social ills, any more than I think that sticking a licence test at the end of your driver training will cure those ills.

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