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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3728 ..

MS GALLAGHER (continuing):

If a man applies for a job and wins the job on merit, he has the job. There are a lot less men applying for these jobs. That has an impact on the number of men who get the jobs in the end-but they win the jobs on merit. We do not say, "This school over here has no men, so we will need to find a man to put in that school."We say, "Which is the best teacher to go into that school? Which is the best teacher for the children in that school, and for that whole school community?"

Those decisions are not, and should not be, made on gender. There is legislation surrounding the principles for employment in the public service. Again, the public service is a non-discriminatory employer.

To wrap up, I am disappointed with the MPI-it is very simplistic: no solutions have been offered, although people have had a bit of a rant about the fact that kids are not getting what they should be getting because we do not have enough men in the area. We are addressing work force issues in child care, and we undertake target campaigns for teacher recruitment. We like to employ male teachers, if they win positions on merit, and we look at other targeted forms of recruitment.

As I said, those decisions are based on merit, and they are based on the best interests of the children. I believe the system we have here is the best in the country. Whilst I would like to see more young men choosing a career in this area-as I would like to see in the entire human services industry-I am not sure the ACT government can do any more than it is already doing. We are addressing the work force issues, which are not based simply on the issue of gender.

MRS CROSS (4.18): I congratulate Mrs Burke for raising this matter of great public importance. I believe we are all aware of the imbalance which has developed in the educational services area.

For many years-a long time ago-the teaching profession was the domain of male teachers. The profession was seen to be a very important one and the teacher was seen as a person of status in the community. In fact, many countries around the world still regard that status highly. The junior primary and pre-school areas were seen to be the domain of female teachers but, in primary and secondary schools, males tended to dominate.

There was a major change in the latter part of the last century. I am aware that there are many reasons for the development of the imbalance, but I believe there are two main ones. This will undoubtedly go to the speeches of both the minister and Mrs Burke.

Firstly, we have had cases of alleged paedophilia and misuse of power by a number of male teachers. There was a great deal of media hype associated with having men in charge of children. There were definite cases of abuse which needed to be dealt with, and a definite need to make people-children in particular-aware of what was acceptable behaviour by teachers. Students in schools were made aware that they did indeed have rights-the most important being their right to be safe in that environment.

As with most situations, when there is a dramatic move to change behaviours and rights in a certain environment, there was a backlash, which we now have to manage. I believe that backlash has manifested itself in the lack of interest shown by males in a teaching

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