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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1334 ..

chief executive to report any criminal acts or other breaches of the law by a student or staff member to the police and any other appropriate authorities. We feel that there have been too many breaches of this fundamental requirement by law with respect to some serious criminal issues, for example drug trafficking and serious violence. By violence we are not talking about general physical bullying; although technically classed as assault, we feel this should still be dealt with by the schools and parents without necessarily being referred to the police. However, where bullying is persistent and gets out of control, involving serious assault, the schools must be obliged to call for police assistance and then allow justice to take its course.

We have a real issue with institutes of any kind closing ranks to mask serious crime and being unable or unwilling to draw the distinction between routine institutional disciplinary matters and matters that actually are of a serious criminal nature. We are quite concerned to push this amendment because of the number of issues we have picked up on where in some places there has been persistent bullying, with quite serious assaults and hospitalisation of students. Although these cases have not occurred very often, they have occurred and we just think that action needs to be taken to enshrine the principle in the bill to take care of those matters.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8.04): The government will not be supporting this amendment. In speaking to his amendment, Mr Pratt referred to issues of serious assault, whereas the amendment refers to any criminal acts and other contraventions of the law, which is quite a great deal broader than serious assault. Other contraventions of the law in a school, for example, could include traffic and parking issues, littering and a range of other minor infractions. This amendment, if accepted, would also prevent principals from using their discretion in response to less serious criminal acts, such as minor vandalism, in a manner that ensures the best outcomes for the school, and, more importantly, for the student who may have been offending.

Mr Pratt justifies this amendment by saying that he is aware of a number of issues in some places where incidents have occurred and that he has proof of these serious assaults. I am certainly aware of a couple recently. On both those occasions they have been referred to the police. Again, this is a Liberal amendment that will not apply to non-government schools; this requirement is not to be imposed on them. It is yet another attack by the opposition on government schools. Again, the opposition is implying that our schools are somehow overwhelmed by issues of serious assault and criminal acts, which is simply incorrect. The opposition does not even have the capacity to explain the specifics of their amendment. All Mr Pratt said was that there had been a number of issues occurring in some places. He then accepted that there were not very many of them but said there were enough to make the opposition concerned.

This is just a nonsense. By bringing in this law and order aspect, the opposition detracts from the really good work that schools are doing to support students who may be having difficulties in their school environment. Again, the view of the opposition is that none of these things occurs in non-government schools and that therefore there is simply no requirement for this in non-government schools.

MS TUCKER (8.06): The Greens will not be supporting this amendment either. I have to say that I too am really struck by what appears to be a focus on bad kids at

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