Page 4746 - Week 13 - Thursday, 28 November 2019
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MS BERRY: Social and welfare support in our schools is important for young people and their families, and also for teachers and school workers. It is important that those kinds of supports are available, and those supports are available, and will continue to be available, provided by the ACT government.
MR WALL: Minister, to what extent have teachers and ACT school staff or volunteers benefited from or accessed the service and support provided by school chaplains?
MS BERRY: As I said, social and welfare supports for our school communities are important for the strength and vitality of those school communities. Those supports are available in our schools, including through the school psychologist programs.
MR COE: Minister, how many school chaplains did you consult with before making the decision to remove chaplains from ACT public schools?
MS BERRY: There are 22 public schools that currently engage school chaplains and that have been involved in consultation around this decision to ensure that our schools remain secular and provide a secular education and social and welfare supports—
Mr Coe: Point of order, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Coe.
Mr Coe: On relevance, the specific question was: how many school chaplains did you consult with? It was not how many school chaplains there are. I repeat: how many school chaplains did you consult with before making the decision to remove chaplains from ACT public schools?
MADAM SPEAKER: Maybe you can clarify that point, minister.
MS BERRY: Yes, Madam Speaker. The Education Directorate has been working with Scripture Union Queensland, which currently engages the 22 chaplains that are engaged in our ACT public schools, and I will be meeting with the school chaplains tomorrow afternoon—
Mr Coe: Point of order on direct relevance, Madam Speaker. The question was: how many school chaplains did you consult with before making the decision? She seems to be avoiding the question.
MADAM SPEAKER: Towards the end of that answer she indicated that she was meeting with them tomorrow but, minister, you have 50 seconds left if you needed to add anything to that.
Schools—bullying
MS LEE: My question is to the Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development. Minister, I refer to the Tuggeranong school which was the subject of a
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