Page 526 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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effective ways to ensure that our schools remain places that are safe and that are rich learning environments for all students. We see that as an incredibly important thing. Just suspending a student without putting in the supports, without working with the family and without addressing the actual issues will just end up being a revolving door of suspensions. I will be keeping a very close eye on the number of suspensions from our schools, which really are too high when you compare the number of suspensions in other jurisdictions.
It should also be noted that the vast majority of suspensions are for one or two days. Most of them are for one day and most of those students never go back to get another suspension. There is a very small group that are suspended more than twice and a smaller group who are suspended for up to five days or more than five days. I really think we are putting the cart before the horse. I believe that we should be going through with this trial, properly evaluating it and sharing those learnings with other schools so that we can do the best by teachers, by school staff and by all students in our schools.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.47): There is a bit of protesting too much by the Greens when they say that it is not that they do not trust principals and that is why they believe principals should be limited to five days in terms of suspensions. I see no other way of reading it. Clearly they are not opposed to longer suspensions in theory, because that ability is there at the moment. So the only change by expanding this particular contentious clause for the Greens is to give the principals that ability without having to seek permission from the department. That is the change. So you can say that it is not because you do not trust principals. But there must be a bit of not trusting principals to not be supporting any change here.
Mr Rattenbury: Come on, Zed. You are just embarrassing yourself here.
MR SESELJA: Mr Rattenbury, who has had a bad day, is interjecting. He interjects because—
Mr Rattenbury: I am having fun today—don’t you worry.
MR SESELJA: Sorry, what was that? You are having a fun day—good. He interjects and says, “Well, you must not have been listening.” But I listened very carefully, and Ms Hunter said on a number of occasions, “No, it is really not because we don’t trust principals.” But what else could it be? If it is simply about that there should not be longer suspensions—there can be longer suspensions now; that ability is there. What this does is simply allow principals to have the flexibility, and it says we do trust principals to deal with these issues.
We are not expecting, nor would we hope, that there would be a flood of suspensions as a result of this change. We would hope that the rate of suspensions does not change. But what we would hope also is that where necessary, where principals deem it necessary and they believe they need to act quickly, they should be able to do that, and they should not have to go through the process that they have to at the moment, because we give them the authority to manage their school and to act in the best interests of all students.
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