Page 3126 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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(b) that the report did not list the terms of reference under which the inquiry was conducted or who conducted it and their qualifications to do so; and
(c) that the report did not explain a number of issues, including why officers within the Directorate who had knowledge of the construction did nothing for nearly two weeks; and
(2) calls on the Government to provide to the Assembly by C.O.B. this Thursday, 17 September 2015, the following information relating to the construction of a cage like structure:
(a) the terms of reference for the original inquiry;
(b) details of who conducted the inquiry, and their qualifications to do so;
(c) the full report of the inquiry, including a complete chronology, only excluding any references and names that would jeopardise the privacy of the school or the family;
(d) copies of all paperwork relating to the decision to request a quote, the quote/s received, invoice and payment method and details of the construction;
(e) advice, including legal advice, relating to the incident, including legal advice as to whether the matter amounted to unlawful imprisonment;
(f) any documented guidelines for the use of the construction; and
(g) the process by which the officers within the Education and Training Directorate will be investigated and by whom and the expected timeline for this inquiry.
It gives me no great joy to bring on this motion today to seek answers as to how a cage came to be built in a school and how no-one other than one principal is to be held accountable. I bring this motion here today in response to the continuing unrest that remains in the community, the disappointment and frustration within the school in question, the anger among the teaching fraternity and the general displeasure among the ACT public at large who still cannot understand why a public school in Canberra thought a cage was the appropriate response to control a child. The Assembly needs answers and the community deserves answers.
If proof is needed about the level of concern about unanswered issues still active in the community, let me draw the Assembly’s attention to last Saturday’s Canberra Times editorial headed, “Burch still has questions to answer over autism cage scandal.” That is the Canberra Times headline, not mine. The editorial talks about the stalling, the refusal to answer questions, the attempts to shift blame to the directorate and to the director-general and the lack of clarity about the status of the principal in question or the future of the public servants who knew about the cage but did nothing.
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