Page 3143 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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Surely we could know that person. And why did the delegate have to ask twice for further information? What was asked? What harm is there in asking what the delegate who was reviewing the answers was asking? He obviously had concerns. Why are we not allowed to know what those concerns are? Why does that take away from your process?
What is in the legal advice? Could we see the legal advice, please? You have some legal advice; you have based your course of action on that legal advice, and I do not think it is unreasonable in this case to see it. No further action is being taken apparently, so what is the harm in releasing the legal advice? Again, the missing dates in the time line, why are dates missing? If you cannot get the chronology right, how can we have any faith that you have investigated all the issues?
These two questions came out of Mr Rattenbury’s speech. How will we know when it is fixed if it has all been done in secrecy? How will we know you have addressed the problems when we are not allowed to know what the problems were? Indeed, Mr Rattenbury said we have to repair the trust with the community. How will we know if we have fixed the trust if everything is kept secret, particularly from that school community and the people who are here to hold the government to account and the community? How will we know? We will not know, and that is why they do not want this information out.
It is important. We heard the minister’s tough words, “I will not tolerate any more events inside the directorate.” Perhaps the Assembly should not tolerate any more events from the minister. The problem is there is no evidence either way as to what really happened and there is no evidence that we have the fix we deserve.
The words are pat, they are carefully constructed, they are void of detail. When you see a report like this, you really have to question what is going on in the minister’s office and in the minister’s head that she thinks that this is acceptable. This is not accountability. Perhaps it is a good thing Katy Gallagher has gone—the new era of openness and accountability. It would appear that era of openness and accountability left with Katy Gallagher.
It is interesting that the Chief Minister has not been here to support his minister. He has been absent in all of this, and the Chief Minister certainly needs to say whether the minister has his confidence. From this report no-one can have confidence that the minister has addressed the issue because we are not aware of what the issues are. (Time expired.)
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (6.03): Ms Burch, through her amendment, has exhibited the usual tendencies—that is, play the sympathy card. We hear constant moaning about how hard this issue has been for the minister. What about the school, minister? What about the children at the school whom the minister chose to ignore and leave in the dark for months? What about parents with special needs children in other schools who are wondering what is going on? The lack of information coming out has upset the whole community, not just the community at the centre of these issues and has been for the last six months.
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