Page 3145 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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amendment while I am also trying to assess how she is trying to respond to my motion. I have to be clear about the fact that it is only in periodic snatches from listening to what is going on around me that I have been able to look at what Ms Burch has brought in as an amendment. It falls far short of anything in the least acceptable amendment that I would consider.
Ultimately she calls on the government to provide the Assembly with a copy of the government’s response to the expert panel review as soon as practicable after the conclusion of the expert panel review. Again, she does not seem to hear what this motion is about. She has just gone off on a tangent. Obviously we cannot agree to the amendment Ms Burch has brought into the Assembly.
To remind all of us what the issue is at hand: we are simply asking for the terms of reference for the original inquiry to be made public. I cannot see what part of any ACT government act would preclude the publication of the terms of reference. If there are any issues that could affect the personal privacy of individuals, certainly redaction can be done. But there is no compromise on this—no terms of reference have been presented. The details of who conducted the inquiry, the minister refused to state that.
The full report of the inquiry, again, making sure any reference to names that would jeopardise the school or the family could be redacted. We are not asking for names to be made public, but the full report of the inquiry should be made public so that the community and the Assembly can make up our minds as to what the investigation has uncovered or not uncovered until now.
In closing, I thank Mr Coe and Mr Smyth for their contributions to this afternoon’s debate as well as those on the other side, as predictable as they have been. We started with an appalling issue about a child locked in a cage. We heard the minister was outraged and determined to get to the bottom of it. I genuinely believe she was horrified and had every intention of sorting this out quickly. But obviously when the truth started to come out the matter was not a simple affair, and it then became a difficult management issue of how to minimise damage and avoid a massive legal fallout. All we have seen since April is a series of poorly managed, poorly manipulated information shutdowns culminating in a very much less than satisfactory report. The community remains outraged. The wider population says something is not right.
It is inconceivable that the principal, an experienced and thorough professional by the minister’s own description, would act for so long without talking to anyone. It is simply not believable—and no-one is accepting that it is—nor is how and why this was not more widely discussed with or without the principal’s involvement.
The silver lining in all this is that at last the directorate recognises the way students with complex needs and challenging behaviours are educated in the ACT is not good enough. It is not; it is failing them and their families. It is not fair on those children and not fair on mainstream children. It is also not fair on the very professional teaching staff who are faced each day with trying to provide the best educational opportunities for all their students but are finding increasing pressure in their ability to do so. Things need to change, and I am confident the Shaddock review—I
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