Page 1344 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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(e) the potential negative consequences for individual children, their families, staff and schools of being identified in evidence or during hearings and the public attention that could arise from that would likely exacerbate already difficult circumstances;
(3) to the extent that evidence or documents related to this inquiry would allow for individual people or schools party to bullying or violence to be identified the Committee take evidence in camera and hold documents on a confidential basis; and
(4) the Committee report to the Assembly by 24 October 2019.
There has been a lot of talk in this place and in our community about the issues of bullying and violence in schools and more generally in our community over the past month or two. As I have made clear, both in the Assembly and in the media, every student and school worker is entitled to be safe, and the government’s commitment to safe and supportive schools is unambiguous. There is no place for bullying or violence in our schools.
Any instance of bullying or violence in a school is unwelcome. It is vital that bullying and violence in schools are minimised to the extent possible and that these issues are properly dealt with when they arise. Equally, because all are welcome in government schools, there will always be a need for deliberate effort to make school communities safe, supportive and inclusive. Schools are not isolated from social issues like bullying or violence faced in the wider community, and everyone—particularly community leaders like members in this place—has a responsibility to change our culture for the better.
As I settled into the education portfolio after the 2016 election, this was one issue that I found particularly troubling and difficult. Having heard from the Australian Education Union about the experience of their members, some 3,700 people, it was clear to me that more needed to be done on the issue of occupational violence. For this reason the ACT government, through the Education Directorate, stepped out as the first jurisdiction in Australia to take this issue on. It is not an easy issue to deal with because it requires engagement with the volatility of young people, children, who might have a lot of things going on in their lives and face challenges others do not. It requires engagement with a problem that human services have grappled with forever but that culturally has now just become part of the job.
This government had the courage to respond to the call after our staff and their union raised it with us. We took the issue head on. The government did not do this because we were forced to by the opposition or by a regulator; we did it because it was the right thing to do. During our work, as members know, the Work Safety Commissioner initiated a review of occupational violence incidents that occurred from 2016, leading to the directorate agreeing to an enforceable undertaking that built on the work already underway.
Among the initiatives in the undertaking is a requirement that the directorate host an intergovernmental forum to share the ACT’s lessons and experiences. This occurred on 21 March. The forum confirmed that the ACT is leading the way in this area.
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