Page 3632 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
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I have much greater respect not only for our schoolteachers but for our school principals in particular.
I am sure Mr Pettersson would agree with me on this. During the inquiry we met with school staff at various schools in the ACT and interstate, and I am in awe of the balancing act that they do. My reading of a school principal’s job, on the basis of what I have learnt in this inquiry, is that it is comparable to riding a unicycle on a high wire while juggling fire sticks; then your phone rings. It is nearly impossible to pull it all off and to do it correctly, and to do it in a way that all of the stakeholders believe is the right way to do it. I take my hat off to them.
It is a long and relatively complex report. I would urge all of those who have been affected by this to read it in full; I think you need to do so. Among the recommendations are that there should be more access to social workers and youth workers, as well as school psychologists, and access to psychological support services outside school hours.
There are, as Mr Pettersson mentioned, some recommendations around our priority enrolment area policies. I think currently they are a little too inflexible when it comes to families who are affected by bullying and violence. The report also includes a recommendation around personal protection orders, which, for the most part, cannot be effectively enforced in a school situation. Surely, we can find a way to draft those orders in such a way. I understand that this is outside the realm, in a lot of cases, of what the ACT government has control over, but surely we can find a way to put those orders together in such a way that they can be a useful means to de-escalate ugly situations. That is what the orders are supposed to do.
There is also mention in this report of the somewhat restrictive referral conditions of the inquiry. There was an obligation to take all evidence that could identify any person or school associated with bullying in camera. We all understand why this condition was put in place; we all get it. But the reality was that, when you actually got to the nuts and bolts of doing the inquiry, it did make it difficult on a number of levels for us to do our job properly.
I say that with all respect to the minister. We all understand why these conditions were put in place, but it did make it nigh on impossible for members of the public to follow any progression of the inquiry. I think it created a perception that we were doing things secretly because we were fearful of revealing the truth. That is not the case, but it did not inspire faith in this process from those who were waiting patiently on the sidelines.
I want to draw—and I know Mr Pettersson mentioned this, too—particular attention to this paragraph in the “conduct of the inquiry” section:
The Committee note that it has undertaken sensitive inquiries previously and always balanced the need to protect vulnerable witnesses against the need for transparency. The Committee would encourage the Assembly to be conscious of including limiting provisions in future referrals to ensure that the activities of a committee are not impeded.
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