Page 1276 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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Leave granted.
MR STANHOPE: I withdraw my amendment.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (11.45): I assume that I am now speaking to the motion, not the amendment. Mr Speaker, am I still able to respond to any of what was said in relation to the amendment?
MR SPEAKER: The amendment has been withdrawn, so it is not a matter for debate.
MR SESELJA: I will respond, firstly, to some of what Mr Stanhope was saying before he moved the amendment. The first thing he mentioned was that somehow, by bringing this motion forward, the opposition elevated this issue and caused alarm in the community. The fact is that we have done no such thing. The school has not been mentioned here today. There has been no mention of the school or the individuals involved. That has not been made public. Great care has been taken to do that. I make that point.
The other thing is alarm about assaults. When you have these assaults—when you see them on the front page of the Canberra Times, when students have them on their mobile phones—it is hardly the mention of an issue in the Assembly, without mentioning names, that would somehow be raising alarm. The alarm has been raised by the fact that these incidents are occurring; that they have been on video, in some cases; and that students, teachers and parents are aware that these incidents are going on.
It is quite a furphy to suggest that somehow, by bringing attention to this issue about a mislead in the Assembly, we are raising alarm or denigrating the public school system—or any of the other terms that have been thrown around. That is complete rubbish. No one here is denigrating the public school system. It is not denigrating the public school system to raise an issue where there are concerns within the public school system, and it is not causing alarm to talk about assaults that are well known in the community—certainly in the communities where the students are affected and where we see significant talk about these issues. It is quite ridiculous to suggest that we are somehow causing alarm.
I would like to turn to the substance of the motion. We need to go back to the actual questions yesterday, to some of the correspondence that has been referred to and to some of the outline of the protocols that are in place. Let me go back to the supplementary question from Mr Stefaniak:
… is it the case that some schools do not report the incident to the police and that some school authorities have actually discouraged parents from reporting to the police? You mentioned the protocols. Will you table those protocols by close of business …
There were interjections across the chamber. I think Mr Barr may have been responding to the interjection. Mr Barr said:
I am not aware of any. No incidents have been brought to my attention whereby there has been a flagrant breach of any of the protocols that are in place.
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