Page 16 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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In the education and disability portfolios for which Ms Burch has responsibility there have been glaring examples. Any of the issues raised today are cause for a censure, but all of these combined leave only one choice–that is, this minister must be removed before she does any more harm.
The area within education that I will be concentrate on this morning is CIT and the handling by Ms Burch as education minister of the serious allegations of systemic bullying detailed in the report of the review of allegations of workplace bullying and other misconduct at the Canberra Institute of Technology.
As I said at the time, the minister’s response to this report was glib, tokenistic and shameful. Worse, the response has added to the pain and suffering of people already at breaking point. The minister, through her clumsy and simplistic response, added further angst to people who were waiting for recognition of their dire circumstances.
Recommendation 1 of the CIT report states that the CIT should acknowledge and apologise for past failures in the management of a small number of areas within CIT. Neither of these happened. The minister in her response advised that the CIT has acted swiftly and delivered a sincere apology. That swift apology was years in the coming, and the level of sincerity is not for the minister to determine; it is for the victims to assess. Judging from the many letters I have received from the complainants, they are far from satisfied, and neither am I.
The minister also said the complaints were just from a small number. I certainly do not regard 42 complaints as just a small number. Indeed, when I asked the education directorate how many similar complaints they had received from a staff of around 5,000, the answer was around 10 such complaints per annum. Forty-two complaints from a staff of 700 should have set alarm bells ringing. But again this morning Ms Burch is still telling us about a small number. Nothing was done for years.
The minister then made matters worse when she urged the community to support CIT. Where was the call to the community to support the staff? Where was the commitment to find those responsible and deal with them? To save her own skin this minister ignored the health, welfare and reputation of the 42 current and former employees of CIT who suffered under the bullying and mismanagement they complained about. While 42 individuals were brave enough to speak up, I understand the original number of complainants was around 70.
This simplistic attitude typifies and highlights Minister Burch’s lack of comprehension of the serious issues that are her responsibility. She does not seem to understand that she is the minister for education and that her responsibility is to all staff, teachers, students, everyone within the directorate and the CIT and not just to a section or, indeed, just the executive. She has claimed the process has been used with genuine commitment and goodwill. Is genuine commitment and goodwill truly demonstrated when management took seven months to respond to the claims? Seven months, Madam Speaker!
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