Page 1002 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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evidence has grown over time in relation to whether or not children are vectors of COVID-19. It was not as strong a month ago as it is today.
We also recognised the anxiety in our community in mid-March—anxiety from parents and teachers, and the anxiety that is reflected in Mrs Dunne’s letter as well. It was certainly reflected in much of the correspondence between Mrs Dunne and me. AHPPC have recognised that as well, and that is why they have provided guidelines and guidance, and have taken a much more cautious approach than Ms Lee would seem to indicate.
Indeed, parents are still split on this matter. Ms Lee would like you to believe that every single parent in the ACT is urging their children back to school and wants to see schools open tomorrow. But one journalist asked Minister Berry today during a press conference, “What about the 25 per cent of parents in a recent survey who are still saying schools should stay closed for the rest of term 2? Will they be required to send their children back to school?”. As I said, Ms Lee makes out that her position is shared by all parents and all teachers, and this is clearly not true.
I would strongly encourage Ms Lee, if she has not already done so, to watch Monday’s Four Corners program, tracking the experience of healthcare workers. Their anxiety, while specific to their work, was reflected in the wider community over the period from early to mid-March through to today. I thought the Four Corners program really drew out very well how much things have changed and how quickly things have changed, and the fact that we are not today where we thought we would be. We were on an exponential curve, like so many other countries, when this decision was made, and we did not know whether we would be able to flatten that curve. We certainly did not know that we would be able to flatten it in the way that we have.
Ms Lee asks: why have hub schools? It is for the very reason that these support our steadfast commitment to equity and to supporting those students who are not able to learn at home. We repeatedly made the point that any student was welcome to come to those safe and supervised hub environments and be supported to learn; that if parents were not confident or were not able to support their children to learn remotely, or needed to go to work, or if their children needed, for their own learning reasons, to come to another environment, all of our students were welcome to do that.
We kept our specialist schools open and we continued to support the most vulnerable young people in our community. As Minister for Children, Youth and Families, that was incredibly important to me. I was incredibly aware of how vulnerable some of our children are when they are not seen in our community. It was incredibly important to me that they have safe and supervised places to go to, and that was exactly what we created for them. I commend the Deputy Chief Minister and the Education Directorate for their creativity in coming up with a solution in a very short time frame to deliver remote learning, which of course has not been perfect, but we were the best set up in the country to do it, and also to deliver safe and supervised sites for those people who could not appropriately access that.
Is it hard to communicate complex messages in this very rapidly moving environment? Yes, it is. Is it even harder when commonwealth ministers for education,
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