Page 1033 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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Here is another person who has come out to say: “I have been stood down. Somebody else has lost their job.” I have lost track of the number of people who now think that they have lost their job because they went to the review.
This is the problem. Ms Hunter knows in her heart of hearts that this is the problem. She says in part 4 of her amendment to my motion that there are real problems. But there is nothing in her amendment that makes the government do this. She wants the government to ensure all staff are aware of their mandatory reporting obligations. But we know that they will not do anything about that. She wants them to do all these things but there is nothing in this amendment that will make them do it.
At the same time, she maintains her steadfast confidence in the human rights inquiry and says it is the only way to go. It is not the only way to go. There are people in the community who have confidence in the team that the Human Rights Commission has put together but they still have concerns that the Children and Young People Commissioner is part of the problem. He has been visiting Bimberi for the two years it has been in operation, and they are not satisfied that, when issues were raised with him, he took them up actively enough. And on one occasion that we all know about, he divulged the identity of the person who had complained to him to that person’s supervisor.
The Chief Minister fell over himself yesterday saying it was unwitting. The commissioner knows the powers that he has under the act. He knows the responsibilities he has under the act. This was not unwitting. At least, it was reckless, because he should know the powers under his act. If he does not know the powers under his act, he should not be in operation.
We are not talking about the fact that he presumed that I knew this person’s name. That was not the real offence. The real offence was that, when she went to the Children and Young People Commissioner, the next thing she knew was that her supervisor had known that she went and spoke to him.
Mr Corbell: There is no evidence.
MRS DUNNE: There is clear evidence that the commissioner told her supervisor enough for her supervisor to work out that she had been to the commissioner, and that is where the victimisation started for her. In addition to that, we have a litany of victimisation—the woodwork teacher victimised, somebody who rang up out of the blue yesterday to confirm that she had been stood down and she believed that she had been stood down a couple of weeks after she went to the review—and the same person reporting that her immediate supervisor had been told not to go to the inquiry.
We cannot support Ms Hunter’s amendment today because it deflects from the real issue that this process has been corrupted. (Time expired)
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Gaming and Racing) (11.30): I rise briefly to respond to a couple of issues that have been raised in
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