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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1374 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I understand that no other Australian jurisdiction has actually legislated against corporal punishment. However, it has been outlawed in Victoria since 1983 and in Western Australia since 1987, and has been systematically phased out from the Queensland education system since 1992. So, whilst there is very little legislation in relation to this, in practice, certainly since the 1980s, in most instances, it has been a non-issue and not an option considered for addressing behavioural problems in schools. Perhaps Mr Moore is just after a few headlines here in relation to this. The actual practice would perhaps indicate that there is no real need for this legislation, given our current practice.

Mr Speaker, advice from the non-government schools registration bodies in all Australian educational jurisdictions indicates that corporal punishment is practised in only a small minority of traditionalist schools, just as is the case here in the ACT. At the moment, no other jurisdiction plans to follow the example of New South Wales and ban corporal punishment through legislation. They simply see that there is no need for that. Most non-government schools and school communities are not expected to respond strongly to Mr Moore's legislation, because it is not an option; the status quo has existed for many years. I do not know how much consultation Mr Moore has had. It is my understanding that the Association of Independent Schools has expressed its opposition to this legislation. It does not see any need for it. Also, the non-government schools advisory committee, which advises the Government, has indicated that the administration of corporal punishment should be left to the systems and schools concerned. I think that viewpoint is understandable, as non-government schools wish to remain as independent as possible.

I note that there is majority Assembly support for this legislation. In terms of what has occurred in practice, one could certainly argue that there is no real need for this. Certainly, in the case of the non-government school sector, some strong concerns have been expressed by bodies which should be consulted and whose views should be taken into account. Realising that the legislation will be going through, and in relation certainly to the non-government school sector, where concern has been expressed about Mr Moore's legislation, the Government will be watching developments with interest to see what effect the legislation has in practice.

MS McRAE (11.56): Before I get onto the substance of the issue, let me begin with what is going on in our schools. Firstly, in any systemic non-government Catholic school and, I was told, all the independent schools, corporal punishment is not used. I went to press with that when Mr Moore first put his Bills in, because I believed all the evidence before me that corporal punishment was not used in any school. That is what I had been told. I earnestly believed, and I still do, that there are far more serious issues in regard to the care of children than whether a few schools may, with the approval of their board and their parents, keep the right to have corporal punishment on their books. However, as it turned out, my information was incorrect and incomplete. We discovered that there were five schools in the ACT that had corporal punishment on their books. This still tallied with the information I had first been given, which was that corporal punishment was not used. Even the Canberra Times article, which pointed out that five such schools existed, did not say when corporal punishment was inflicted. We had a fairly consistent message that there was not much corporal punishment going on in our schools.

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