CHILD PROTECTION INQUIRY

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:48): Supplementary: if this was a mistake, why did Mr Blewett file this email under a folder on his computer called 'school issues' and then never ever go back to follow it up?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:48): I direct the member to the findings that are made by Mr Debelle. It is not a finding that is made by Mr Debelle, that there has been some other ulterior purpose in those matters. He accepts Mr Blewett as a witness of truth.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: You can laugh about that, but he accepts Mr Blewett as a—

The SPEAKER: Premier, would you be seated. I warn the deputy leader for the first time. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: He accepts Mr Blewett's evidence that these are proper matters to be handled by an agency, especially an agency that employs staff with special expertise in these areas, that operational matters are a matter proper for staff, that it would be wrong for ministerial staff to meddle in the affairs, especially sensitive affairs of this sort, at the level of the school. He accepts Mr Blewett's assertion that he was entitled to assume that the matter was being properly handled. So Mr Blewett's mistake needs to be considered in that context.

Of course, it was a mistake not handing it on to me, but you need to consider that mistake in the context of the findings that were made that he was entitled to assume the matter was being handled properly. There is no positive thing that Mr Blewett did: it was the failure to do something. He was acting on the basis of a proper assumption that Mr Debelle said he could make, that is, that the matter was being handled at the level of the school appropriately.