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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1684 ..
MR HARGREAVES (continuing):
The teachers were looking at addressing some of the social problems through peer support. There were some success stories in the school-admittedly, only one or two-but there was peer support and a mentoring arrangement for some people who were off the rails and into heroin. As the minister would know, there is significant heroin use and trafficking among indigenous youth, and we have to stop that. We can stop it through punitive measures, through the law, or we can stop it at source by taking away the desire and need. The teachers who were working at that school were doing a great job in addressing just that. If you wanted to apply the standards of success in mainstream schools to that school, certainly it was not doing all that well. Certainly the success numbers were not all that large. But I would argue that, given the small number of indigenous kids in this town in that age group, a success of one, two, three or four is a fairly reasonable success rate, because there is something on which to build. These teachers were building on that. I would like to see some attention given to that.
That is the sort of thing I would be looking for when looking at a report. I would be looking to see whether that sort of service was still being provided and, if not, at whether it could be reinstated. I would be looking at how it was tracking. I had a casual conversation with a teacher there whose job disappeared. It is not very often that you find a teacher very close to tears because they cannot provide the service to students that they want to provide. I thought it was a tragedy. My role in the department of education at that time had absolutely nothing to do with the policy of that area, so it was totally inappropriate for me to do or say anything.
I pick up the minister's point about making political capital out of this issue. That was smack in the middle of the election campaign, and the minister would know that I did absolutely nothing about it. This motion has given me an opportunity to share my genuine concerns with the government. I hope that, when we get these reports, there will be something in them for me to read.
MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again.
Leave granted.
MR STEFANIAK: Mr Berry and I have had a quick discussion, and we have come up with two agreed amendments which I seek leave to move together.
Leave granted.
MR STEFANIAK: I move:
Paragraph (2), omit "quarterly", substitute "six monthly".
Paragraph (2), omit "beginning with the June 2000 quarter", substitute the words "the first report to be issued by 1 September 2000.".
MS TUCKER
(4.11): I will be speaking to the motion as well as the amendments, and I will be very brief. I understand why Mr Berry moved this motion, but I did express some concerns to him when he told me he was going to move it, because I feel that it pre-empts the inquiry the education committee is currently undertaking. We have received
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