Page 1350 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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parents so directly affected by this issue will not either. I do know that they will be happy an inquiry will be held. It is not the completely external-to-the-Assembly independent inquiry they had sought, but they know it is a far better solution than the minister’s previous offerings.
Violence in schools is not isolated; nor is it recent. While the minister has insisted that school violence is isolated and infrequent and that occupational violence is not a growing problem, the evidence suggests she is wrong—so wrong on both counts. In October last year, the Canberra Times reported that the Education Directorate had been served a WorkSafe ACT enforceable undertaking for failing to keep education staff safe in their workplace.
At the time of the announcement, the minister said the issue was one she had known about and had been working on since her appointment as the minister. She also said the ACT had a nation-leading policy in place, that she was the only education minister in the country doing something about occupational violence and that things were now much better. She argued that occupational violence had not been growing; it was merely better reporting that was driving the figures up, and she has reiterated that. The government figures obtained by the Canberra Liberals do not support that theory.
Through responses to questions asked on notice, we have discovered that there has been a fivefold increase in the number of reported incidents of occupational violence in the Education Directorate over the past five years. In fact, a staggering 75 per cent of all incidents reported across the ACT public service come from the Education Directorate. This equates to more than six violent incidents per day. In 2013-14 there were 480 incidents. By 2016-17 that figure had jumped to 1,622, and by 2017-18 it was 2,431. The minister is in charge of administering a directorate that has record levels of occupational violence amongst its school-based staff, and now we know that there are significant pockets of violence, bullying and unacceptable behaviour among students in our schools.
The minister cannot be held responsible for this culture developing, but she is responsible for seeing it addressed and managed appropriately. By continuing to deny an open and transparent inquiry over weeks and months she has allowed these behaviours to flourish unabated. Even her tabled response to the petition was full of set rhetoric. Having a policy written down, having a future of education strategy document in glossy format to wax on about in public forums does not substitute for real action and genuine commitment to change. It is, frankly, an insult to the intelligence of the petitioners to say as she did in her response tabled yesterday:
The government willingly acknowledges the need for transparency and accountability in its management of schools.
In keeping with this, the government has decided to refer the issue of violence in schools to the relevant Legislative Assembly standing committee for inquiry and report.
That statement alone is bordering on misinterpretation. But, not satisfied with that interpretation of events, the minister then goes on to set out how the inquiry should be
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