Page 5100 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010
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We recognise that the government will need to consider how this will fit in with other workplace regulations and how the covert surveillance authority application process will work in the Magistrates Court. We look forward to providing briefings and negotiating with other parties in this place to ensure that this bill can be enacted with the support of all members.
I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Corbell) adjourned to the next sitting.
Discrimination Amendment Bill 2010
Mr Seselja, pursuant to notice, presented the bill.
Title read by Clerk.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.13): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
I rise today to bring forward an important amendment on an important issue. The amendment bill I am presenting today has only one clause but it is a very important one. It is a clause that goes to a much deeper issue and exemplifies many of the values that we as Liberals hold to. It is a clause that highlights some of the extremes and absurdities that can arise when good intentions go astray. It is a change that needs to happen to bring some common sense back to the territory.
On 7 September this year, Lanyon high school principal Bill Thompson was reported in the Canberra Times for his imaginative attempt to keep kids in class. This teacher of 32 years attempted a very simple solution. He asked the shops in the nearby centre not to serve kids during school hours. In return he offered to promote the names of the shops that helped prevent truancy in the local school newsletter as a sign of community support.
Mr Thompson is reported to have said, “In Sydney there are signs up saying ‘we will not serve students’.” It was a simple attempt to get better results, an idea that had been run in other place with some success. On ABC radio the idea gained a lot of local support. There were reports on 14 September this year saying that the principal had “enlisted the help of local shopkeepers to provide a practical solution to deal with the age-old issue of kids wagging school”. And support he got. It was reported that “666 listeners held some strong opinions with one caller believing that the education system was failing to engage our young people”.
Not all shops took up the request. Some could not be contacted and others refused, as is their right. But he rightly expected that he could at least raise the issue and get some local support.
What must have shocked Mr Thompson was that this simple attempt at local community collaboration to do the right thing by the kids of the neighbourhood had
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