Page 385 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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authorised and codified under the provisions of the TQI Act and that they have a positive obligation to do so. I am sure that the minister will expand on some of the other very important amendments that are contained in this bill.
The changes brought by this bill provide the ACT government and the Education Directorate with the opportunity to work together with other agencies and service providers and, importantly, across sectors and jurisdictions. They also create the environment for genuine collaboration to implement the child safe standards, which can act as a springboard to continue the conversation about ways in which we can collaborate.
I note the scrutiny committee’s report No 26, regarding their views on some instances in this legislation of privacy and reputation and right to the presumption of innocence, and I acknowledge that it appears that we have struck the right balance with these important provisions when considering human rights obligations.
As has been pointed out by other speakers today, this has been nation-leading work. Each improvement adopted through this bill will provide a strengthened environment to ensure the safety of children in our schools. I commend the bill today.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (11.35), in reply: I am happy to have the chance to speak today on the debate on the Education (Child Safety in Schools) Legislation Amendment Bill, which I introduced to the Assembly in November last year. The ACT government intends to bring more clarity to the roles and responsibilities of people carrying a duty of care to children and young people in schools. We do this by making a number of key changes to both the ACT Quality Institute Act 2010 and the Education Act 2004.
Since becoming education minister, I have had a conversation with the community about what they wanted for the future of education in the ACT. Through this conversation, I heard that our community values education. I heard that our community values its teachers and school leaders. I also heard that our community had confidence in its schools, yet at the same time had ideas about how they could be even better. The ACT government is firmly committed to making sure schools are safe, and we are strengthening child safety in schools as we also work on nation-leading improvements to ensure the safety of teachers and other school staff.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made clear that all institutions should uphold the rights of a child. An important contribution to achieving this is through the implementation of the child safe standards identified by the royal commission. The royal commission also made clear that state and territory governments should require all institutions in their jurisdiction that engage in child-related work to meet the child safe standards.
The review into the system-level responses to family violence in the ACT by Laurie Glanfield AM made clear that there is a need for and opportunities to improve
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