Page 3130 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Two other aspects remain outstanding. The first: who made the determination that this was not a criminal act? Locking a child in a cage is against the Human Rights Act and if it is a criminal offence it would need to be reported to the police. I was advised in a briefing by the minister that in fact this was not a criminal offence. But where is the evidence to support that? Who provided that advice and what were their qualifications to make that judgement? We have not been told.
The other unanswered question is the status of the school principal. In that same ministerial briefing I asked where the principal was now. I was told that the answer could not be provided, due to legal advice. Strangely, by the next morning, after media pressed the minister on the issue, the legal advice had changed and it was announced that the former principal was employed within the directorate but would never be in a school again.
But that is not the understanding of the ACT education union. They have quite rightly gone into bat for the principal. Let me quote from the Canberra Times of last week.
But the Australian Education Union on Tuesday weighed into the matter of the principal’s sanction, questioning the “attempted scapegoating” of the principal for the incident.
While Ms Joseph was adamant the woman was no longer a principal and would not “return to a school”, the AEU ACT secretary Glenn Fowler said this was a misleading representation of the outcome.
“It is very disappointing that political expediency by the government has overridden accuracy,” Mr Fowler said.
In fact, the director-general said publicly later that the principal would never return to a school. But, as a consequence of the displeasure expressed by the ACT education union, she was forced to modify her remarks. So once again we have more variations, more modification, more manipulating the truth. But in the public eye the status of the principal still remains uncertain. Lack of clarity pervades this whole issue and the report just makes it worse. So many areas are not covered.
We do not know the basis for any of the legal advice provided on many of the conclusions and decisions. Did the GSO, for example, suggest the matter was not a criminal offence? Did the GSO suggest the inquiry be made a HR inquiry to avoid detailed scrutiny of the results?
The matter will not rest until there is a genuine, detailed and transparent response. To date we have not got it and, until we do, the ACT community will not give up. It is up to the government to lay this matter to rest—and they can do so, by showing some willingness to answer some questions instead of constant obfuscation; by publishing the terms of reference for the original inquiry; by publishing the details of who conducted the inquiry and their qualifications to do so; the full report of the inquiry to be published, including a complete chronology excluding only any references and names that would jeopardise the privacy of the school or the family. Copies of all paperwork—(Time expired.)
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video