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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3920 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

able to interpret the information they have got and make sure that that information is used in a positive way with a child which has psychological difficulties.

So what is the danger to our children? The danger to the children is that we have a counsellor doing these psychological tests and misinterpreting them. That is the sense of the danger that I am talking about. What is the concern? It is a concern that Mr Stanhope talked about: the grounds under which the board will be required to register somebody in the transition period, including the grounds that they have been providing psychological services. That is the concern that we have.

What action have we taken? We have brought this legislation to the Assembly in order to ensure that that does not stop. How will this affect somebody's employment? It will not because we employ school counsellors to do counselling services. We also have, as Mr Stefaniak will explain, a range of people who provide counselling services and psychological services. Some counsellors call in psychologists to assist them at the appropriate time. Of course, that will continue to be the case because in many primary schools, for example, there is not a need for a psychologist, but there is a need for a school counsellor. Sometimes there is a need for a psychologist, not full time, and such a person is brought in to assist the school counsellor. That is what this legislation is about. That is why it is that we want to be able to move on it in order to remedy this anomaly.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Minister Assisting the Attorney - General) (9.34): This amendment really is a bit of a nonsense. I think I said earlier that there are about 10 school counsellors who are not about to be registered as psychologists. There are about 40 who are already psychologists, 13 who are able to be - I could be corrected on that - and about 10 who cannot. Mr Moore mentioned the analogy of a law clerk and a solicitor. He also mentioned that no - one will be losing their job, and no - one will be losing their job.

We have had a transition period under the old act of about five or six years because we are talking about 1994 legislation. I believe that Mr Stanhope's amendment would simply extend it for another 18 months. I just think that that would be rather pointless because the reality of the situation is, firstly, that no - one will lose their job and, secondly, all of the people in our schools do their job very well and the fact that we have about 10 who are school counsellors as opposed to psychologists really is neither here nor there.

A similar position applies with law clerks. I know a few law clerks. I have known some law clerks here who have practised for 30 years. I would rather go to them, quite frankly, than a lot of the solicitors in this town, even though they do not have the formal qualifications.

Mr Stanhope: Do they get paid as much?

MR STEFANIAK: No, they do not get paid as much as solicitors in many instances, Mr Stanhope; do not show your ignorance. The fact is that they do a very good job and many people are quite happy with that. However, on occasions they will say, "I cannot do that because I do not have the formal qualifications. You need to do that through a solicitor."

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