Page 1465 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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many. Some of my colleagues this week have been asking Mr Barr questions about some of the policies and procedures of his department and how they relate to operations in Bimberi Youth Justice Centre, and the minister cannot answer the questions.
A number of issues have been raised with me by staff in relation to bullying, and in relation to mandatory reporting. There is a very comprehensive lack of understanding about how mandatory reporting should operate in the environment of Bimberi Youth Justice Centre. Ms Hunter spoke about this last week and on other occasions—that there seems to be a failure in communication in relation to mandatory reporting.
So that all members of this place have a clear understanding of what the policies and procedures are, for the most part they should be, as Mr Barr pointed out today, on departmental websites. If there are policies and procedures that are not published and that for some reason should be kept confidential, I have not proposed in this motion that they be published or that they be authorised for publication; rather, this motion proposes that the information is made available for the information of members of this place.
It would be reasonable for the departments, in providing this information via their ministers, to highlight those which are on the public record, those which are not and why that is the case. It would be incumbent upon us as members not to divulge things which essentially go to the security of Bimberi Youth Justice Centre. That is not what this is intended to be about. This is intended to ensure that everyone is fully aware of what the myriad policies and procedures are and what processes the departments of Education and Training and Disability, Housing and Community Services have gone through to ensure that the staff that they employ and that work at Bimberi are aware not only of the procedures but of when those procedures change, and that they have been trained to fully implement those.
The constant message is, “We didn’t know that this was a problem,” or, “We didn’t know that this was a procedure.” And the only time they find out about it is not through some training process or anything like that, but if someone thinks they have done something wrong, they produce a set of procedures and say, “Why haven’t you complied with this before?” The answer usually is, “Because I didn’t know that that’s what the policy was.”
I am mindful of the amendment that Ms Hunter has foreshadowed, which the Canberra Liberals will not be supporting. It would be useful, to comply to some extent with the spirit of Ms Hunter’s amendment, if the information provided for the information of members is also provided to the human rights commissioner and the Children and Young People Commissioner, who are conducting reviews into the Bimberi youth justice system and the youth justice system in general. Then we will all know that everybody has the same information and we are all singing from the one hymn sheet.
I was surprised to see Ms Hunter’s circulated amendment—and I will address it a little later—because she seems to not want members of this place to receive information, and I have to wonder why. Much has been said about the management
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