Page 1353 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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they wish, and that she could bring her expertise to the table on how to deal with particular vulnerabilities that young people face, as an advocate for them. The ideas she expressed to me were around the fact that adults have a choice, often, about giving consent in these matters and the like but young people do not necessarily have that same opportunity.
Having sought that advice, I would share with the committee the willingness of the Children and Young People Commissioner to be available as a source of information and expertise, should the committee wish to avail itself of that. They would make their own approach and the commissioner would work with them as she sees fit, as an independent officer. But I wanted to share that insight, having been prompted to give her a call. I think her words and her advice to me were very valuable and I wanted to share that with the Assembly and the members of the committee as an input. The Greens will be supporting the motion as it is expressed on the notice paper today.
MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (11.38): All children deserve an education free from bullying and violence. In order for students to thrive and grow, their place of education needs to be a safe and nurturing space. There is no place for violence in our schools. As we are all aware, unfortunately there have been incidents of violence in Canberra schools. This is unacceptable.
Members of the community, parents, teachers and students are rightly concerned about these incidents. That is why I think it is appropriate and warranted that the Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs conduct an inquiry into the management and minimisation of bulling and violence in government and non-government schools. An inquiry by members of this place is a further step in tackling the issue of bullying. This is on top of the advisory committee established by the minister.
This committee inquiry will be dealing with vulnerable people and very sensitive issues. The committee will no doubt hear from parents, teachers, unions, school staff, the wider community and maybe even students themselves. They will talk about their experiences. But inherently they will be talking about easily identifiable children and schools. That is why we need to be especially careful in ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of all members of the community who give evidence in front of the committee and those who will be affected by wider discourse on this issue.
We cannot allow the children to be ostracised or identified by the evidence of others. That is why I support the minister’s request that the evidence put to the committee that will identify children in schools be collected in camera. The committee should and must hear from these people. Their evidence should inform our recommendations and our report. We have the responsibility not to name and shame, or allow others to name and shame, children.
I understand the constraints of this place in managing how committees go about their work. But I want it on the record that I think it would be best practice for in-camera hearings to occur that will protect the wellbeing of children. I will commit myself to pursuing this outcome, both in this chamber and in committee. We are, after all, dealing with very sensitive issues. We need to ensure that those giving evidence feel
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