Page 1476 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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The motivation for this motion today is the number of significant complaints the Canberra Liberals have received from staff who say: “We don’t know what the procedures are. We don’t know what the mechanism is. We haven’t been trained.” It is not just in relation to DHCS procedures. It is in relation to procedures in the department of education. I raise this because it was topical yesterday. Yesterday Mr Doszpot, I think, asked Mr Barr about the reporting of child abuse and neglect in public schools and what was the policy. The minister tabled it in here today and said, “You can find it on the webpage.” He did not go to what was in the policy because he thought that it was too long. But we will go to the crux of it. It says what principals at public schools are required to do.
Mr Barr: All the teachers, everyone who is in contact with young people; not just principals, Mrs Dunne—everyone.
MRS DUNNE: All teachers have a role in mandatory reporting. If the minister read his own guidelines, the guidelines of his department, he would see that junior teachers do this in concert with senior teachers, deputy principals and principals. The role of the principal is to provide annual training in mandatory reporting processes and procedures and in codes of conduct for all staff, to keep a record of attendance of staff attending mandatory reporting training, to induct new staff who have missed training in their responsibilities under this policy, to inform visitors of the requirements to report to the principal suspicions or beliefs of abuse et cetera, to ensure lessons for children and young people in protective and safe behaviours are delivered, to implement the providing safe schools P-12 and associated policies and to ensure appropriate pastoral care and protective behaviours programs are delivered.
That is what the principal has to do. Yesterday Mr Doszpot and Mr Coe asked the minister whether that was done at Bimberi, to which he replied, “Principals are supposed to do this, so, yes.” But what this motion today will do is require the minister to table a schedule that says, in relation to this policy, that the principals provided training on such and such an occasion. The register will show that such and such staff have received training, that there have been follow-up staff for new and inducted training and that there has been protective behaviours training provided for the young people who attend the Murrumbidgee Education and Training Centre.
It would cover all of those things. As things currently stand, there are teachers—current and former—contractors and the like who tell me that they have never been told about mandatory reporting. While they have worked with the Murrumbidgee Education and Training Centre they have not received annual training in mandatory reporting practices. To the best of their knowledge, they are not aware of protective behaviours programs provided for the children and young people. When you consider the vulnerability of the young people who go there and the turnover, it would have to be a fairly constant process of providing protective behaviours training for young people at the Murrumbidgee Education and Training Centre.
That is just one example—an example that arose in question time yesterday. It is not sufficient to say, “Go and look on the webpage.” This motion calls on the minister, in addition to providing the policies and procedures, to inform the Assembly in accurate
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