Bills

Education and Children's Services Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 9 August 2017.)

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:01): The Education and Children's Services Bill 2017 represents, in the minister's words, 'the most significant reform of education in 40 years'. Not everyone agrees with that. Can I say that there is quite a substantial history to this bill, which I will touch on for a little while. I will talk about some of the things we support and some of the things we might be moving some amendments to, and there are some things we have some questions about. Given that it is in fact a rewrite of the Education Act and the Children's Services Act, it does traverse some territory, combining both those acts into a new act.

It traverses some wide territory. I imagine that the scope of this bill covers anything to do with education. I expect that members might like to make their own contributions about the way that will be impacted by the scope of this bill. Let me start slightly in the broad because this is about the principles of how we are running our schools and what we are going to achieve for our young people in South Australia in the years ahead. What do we want to achieve? What is the purpose?

Frankly, our education system should be seeking and striving to be nothing less than the best education system in the country. Our schools should be the best in the country and our preschools should be the best in the country, whether they are government, independent, Catholic or anything else. The rising tide will lift all the boats, and we want the best for our children because what could be more important than their achievement and their future?

Our education system should embody excellence, advocate choice, engage parents and teachers and grow opportunities for our next generation.

Our families deserve access to the best schools and childcare in the nation, to build our children's [capacities and] capabilities and our State's future

In supporting the education choices that parents, care-givers and families make for their children [we believe that they] are the ones who know them best

[We believe that] education professionals need to be empowered, engaged and supported to ensure the best outcomes for their students

[We believe that] young people should be provided with the education and training opportunities they need to gain employment both in new and established industries [in the future]

Those are the words that Steven Marshall, the Leader of the Opposition, used in his '2036' document, a framework document underpinning the principles and reform agendas of a future Liberal government in South Australia if we take government at the next election on 17 March 2018. These are tremendously important.

In March last year, we released the '2036' document, which outlined some of that reform agenda. In the year and a half since and in the six months to go before the election, we will be outlining more of those policies. All of them are relevant to this bill, because of course the bill provides the framework through which government is able to take action in relation to these matters. The focus areas we have identified that a Liberal government would deliver to achieve this vision together are, firstly, to deliver the best schools in Australia by improving education outcomes and teaching standards. The document states:

We want our schools to be the best in Australia. When parents drop their children off for their first day of school they deserve an education guarantee: we will respect your children and ensure they get the best education.

We believe students’ educational outcomes should be the prime focus of our school system. There is no second opportunity when it comes to educating our young people—we need a system that encourages excellence from our child’s very first day of school.

Sometimes I fear that public policy debate can get hijacked into a false dichotomy in this area—that there is a choice between excellent educational outcomes or the wellbeing of and the looking at the child as a whole.

That is a false dichotomy because, in pursuing excellent educational outcomes, what you actually do is give children the confidence to achieve their best, whether they are somebody who is going to be a high intellectual, high-minded and high achieving, in their chosen field, whether they are somebody who is going to be an excellent tradesperson who is going to have the most outstanding opportunities for their life supported by having a terrific career in the trades and skills that we can support through having an excellent VET system in the school, or whether they are a student with special needs and special abilities who needs their best endeavours to be supported in a different way for them to achieve their best selves and have the best life possible. Or, if it is a student who is a kind person who is potentially in the middle ranks, achieving their best is still going to help them have a better life.

It is a false dichotomy to say that focusing on educational achievement and excellence is somehow doing anything other than also supporting a child's wellbeing. We believe, and we have seen, through achievement at schools that are the best practice, that by focusing on educational achievement you can absolutely also deliver excellent wellbeing and that by supporting the student's wellbeing you help them to be their best educational selves too. It is not one or the other. It has to be both.

We have seen student wellbeing programs at a number of schools in South Australia that have delivered extraordinary improvements in academic achievement. I was at Mount Barker High School recently with Dan Cregan, the Liberal candidate for Kavel. I spoke to the principal there who, over the last five years, has seen significant improvements in educational outcomes through focusing on student wellbeing as well as that educational aspect.

The point I wish to make here in particular is that if our standards, through testing, through results, are falling, then it is not good enough for the government to say, 'That's because here in South Australia we focus on the whole child. That's because here in South Australia we focus on student wellbeing,' because it is both. Wellbeing and academic achievement go hand in hand. There is always going to be a bell curve in terms of academic achievement, but if you focus on moving the whole bell curve up the scale and on improving student wellbeing for all of those students, those things go hand in hand.

In those states that might have better outcomes, whether it is in the NAPLAN tests or anywhere else, to say that they do not have any focus on student wellbeing I think is also disingenuous. Of course they do. Of course they have interest areas and focus areas in relation to supporting their students' wellbeing, just as we do in South Australia. We have so many great teachers and so many school leaders doing such a great job, but we should always be seeking the best because our children deserve nothing less. The Leader of the Opposition's '2036' document states:

We believe that through enhanced autonomy and flexibility, empowering principals, better engaging school communities, and improving the status and effectiveness of the teaching profession, the dreams of students receiving the best possible education in South Australia will become a reality.

The document goes on to the second reform agenda, which is in relation to returning decision making to parents, principals, teachers and local school communities. The document goes on:

We [in the Liberal Party] believe that school communities should have a greater level of control and flexibility to respond to the resourcing and specific educational needs of their students in a targeted way. Every school community is different, with unique challenges, strengths and potential. We believe the school community’s teachers, principals and families are best placed to understand the individual needs of their students, rather than bureaucrats.

School autonomy has been a catch phrase regularly thrown around in the public debate for 15 years. Different people mean different things by it. Clearly it has been identified as something that is a popular saying: it obviously polls well. I have not read polling on this sort of thing, but every education minister in state governments in the country talks about it. The Labor Party used not to, but the last few ministers have talked about enhanced autonomy. Things we will have to grapple with in the years ahead are: where are the areas where it is of significant benefit for there to be enhanced autonomy and where are the opportunities that are working as a system, particularly in relation to public schooling, that work best?

To give credit to the government, earlier this year they identified one area where schools having the autonomy to pay their own electricity bills was not providing any obvious benefit to the people of South Australia or the families of those schools, because you had a mechanism by which schools identified how much they would get, based on the size of their school and so forth, but those schools that had benefited from the provision of solar panels, or those schools that by their infrastructure needs and nature had higher electricity costs, potentially had to spend a much bigger part of their global budget on meeting those bills than might the schools that had those benefits.

By ensuring that that was one thing that the system could take over was a very sensible outcome. That was an area where autonomy was not providing value to those schools. In the years ahead it will be very important that we work with groups—national groups, groups like AITSL and groups like the stakeholder bodies here in South Australia and at a national level—and with our researchers to find the best ways to get the benefits of local decision making and principal and school autonomy to ensure that at the local level they can get value from having that autonomy.

However, I do note that this bill (and I will come back to this in a little while) makes quite profound changes to the current situation in the way that local school governance is managed. This is something that the Liberal Party has some concerns about, and I will be detailing those in a little while. In principle, empowered decision-making is important. I do not believe that the bill improves the situation with regard to empowered decision-making, and I think there are some improvements that the bill will need to have.

The third area the Leader of the Opposition identified in our reform agenda to achieve the best schools in Australia was to build more innovative and flexible school systems. Our children deserve a school system that responds to their needs, celebrating the individual learner and preparing them for a full and enriching life beyond the school gate. We want to create a system that is able to embrace all our students, strengthens their skills and encourages them to take risks and think laterally.

The school curriculum needs to be flexible to the needs of students whilst also giving them the skills they need to gain future employment. We believe that South Australian students deserve a modern curriculum that provides them with the traditional academic skills they need to gain employment, but also gives them the tools they need to grow and contribute to a transitioning economy.

Our school system must also look after our children who may require extra support due to disability or special needs. We believe that it is in the best interests of young people with special needs to provide the support they need to help them reach their full potential. We understand that parents and their children need to be empowered, and they deserve to have choices about which educational opportunities they take up. Options need to be available that meet the needs of the child to give them the best possible opportunities for their future.

I identify in the bill that we are talking about at the moment (and may well be talking about for some time this afternoon) that it has a provision that does not exist in the current act that enables the chief executive of the department to have a child's placement looked at without, necessarily, consultation with the parents, in direct contravention with our policy direction here. However, I do identify that, when this was raised with the principal and the officers, who were very kind with their time and generous with their support at the briefing I had with the minister and senior department officials last week, this was an area, whether it was inadvertent or something that was supposed to be picked up by regulations or through policy, for whatever reason, was not something the government intended to cut out of the bill.

I indicate that the opposition will be preparing amendments on this area. I received a letter from the minister yesterday (which I saw she signed in the chamber), and it came back to me within about half an hour due to a very efficient example of use of technology in her office. It is amazing what they can do these days. The minister confirmed that the government might also potentially be putting an amendment in this space. That is something where I think we can proceed without too much fuss. I will go to the specific clause later when I am going through the clauses.

We believe that schools need the flexibility to respond to the distinct needs of their students within their education pathway from the early years through to graduation. Some students are suited to studying traditional subjects in year 12; some may be more interested in starting a business, learning a trade or gaining the skills to enter a particular vocation. The state Liberals will support schools to respond to the needs and ambitions of their students whilst also encouraging educators to play to their students' strengths in order to build a generation of creative, intelligent, empowered and entrepreneurial young people.

We believe that teachers should be supported, encouraged and strengthened. Very few things are as important to our community as the impact that our teachers have on our students' lives and children's homes, the impact that children's teachers have on the classroom and the impact that school principals have in leading their teachers to educational excellence. These are the things that really drive our educational system and improve outcomes. Our teachers should be supported, encouraged and strengthened. By rewarding teaching excellence we will continue to lift the standard of teaching across the state. Better teachers mean better schools, which means better learning opportunities in young adults who are better suited to making their dreams a reality.

It is really important that we spend a moment on teachers. I think that the member for Fisher has a motion on the Notice Paper tomorrow, but I am not sure if I can even mention it—I am not sure what standing orders say in relation to that—as we have not moved it yet. I can at least reflect that World Teachers' Day is a tremendous opportunity, and I hope that members will reflect on this opportunity to talk about the excellent examples of teaching that we see in our local communities all the time, in our families and schools, and teachers in our families. The impact that those teachers have on those young lives is life changing, profound and absolutely necessary to a well-functioning society.

Australia is one of the best countries in the world. We clearly have some good teachers out there and we have some great teachers out there. We want to make sure that all our children across all our schools have nothing less than the best teachers. Where there is excellent teaching practice, that is to be rewarded and encouraged and made an example of as a shining light for others to follow. Where there are issues, we must address them because our children deserve no less than that as well.

The fourth area in the education chapter of Steven Marshall's reform document, the '2036' document, is that we will achieve our aspirations together by expanding opportunities for students to engage with training, skills and higher education and ready themselves for employment. Some of these areas are in relation to higher education skills, rather than in this bill. But in relation to this bill particularly, this chapter identifies that we will equip our young people with the skills and knowledge they need to successfully transition to training and further education to improve their career pathway options.

We believe that vocational training and skill creation is a crucial building block in the future economic success of our state, and it is critical that that VET sector is interacting with our schools in a positive way and that those students who are going to have a terrific career by pursuing VET opportunities and going on to trades and skills pathways are given every support and encouragement needed to do so. This idea that everybody needs to go to university to have a good job later in life is so far beyond ridiculous. I think, to our society's credit, people understand that, but I fear that there are still some people who think that the opportunity to go to a university to do a degree is something that every student must take to achieve success. No, of course that is not the case; that is ridiculous.

It is so important that the opportunities for VET pathways are supported in our schools because, frankly, there are many jobs in that area where people are going to have very successful and very happy careers and it will be a much better use of their time to do an apprenticeship than go to university. I enjoyed my university education, and I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given to do a Bachelor of Arts at Adelaide University. Maybe that suited my attributes, maybe it did not, but it was certainly something that my parents wanted me to do because they had not had that opportunity.

I understand that aspiration that parents have, but it is so important that we as a society understand that in fact we need the electricians, carpenters and plumbers. Think of the thousands and thousands of jobs that are going to be created in the decades ahead working on shipbuilding here in South Australia. Plenty of those jobs are going to need a good, skilled workforce. We want that workforce to come from our young people here in South Australia.

Finally, in relation to our principles document, we also understand that in order to be competitive on the international stage we need our young people to be finishing school with some language skills other than English. Increasingly, Western countries are refocusing on the importance of growing their bilingual workforce. By supporting our students to take advantage of opportunities to learn a new language, we will upskill our workforce and take advantage of our international trade links.

We have an extraordinary opportunity in South Australia with our multicultural community. Hundreds and thousands of South Australian speak another language because they have come here from a country that is not an English-speaking country. That is something that should be nurtured. Their children and grandchildren should be encouraged to learn that second language, not just to retain a link to their heritage and their home country but because it is an asset to our community, our state and our nation to have many people with bilingual skills. Many people have a head start if they have parents or grandparents who speak a language other than English.

This is a clear and present problem for the people of South Australia because 15 years ago, when this government came to power, 12 per cent of our students were studying a language other than English at year 12 level, which was then considered SACE stage 2. Now that has dropped to less than 5 per cent—4.9 per cent in fact. It has dropped profoundly in absolute terms, even as we now have a legislative obligation that children stay to year 12. So the number of year 12 students has certainly gone up, which might have impacted the percentage, but in absolute terms, in core number terms, the number has dropped by about half.

Of the 5 per cent of year 12 students who did a language other than English as a year 12 subject last year, about 200 of them—certainly it was a very substantial percentage of around 1,000 students—or 20 per cent of those students were Chinese students who had come to Australia from a Chinese-speaking country after the age of seven, so Chinese was clearly a first language for them and they were doing the subject designed for native Chinese speakers.

That is great. I am pleased. That is a cohort that I identified in my earlier remarks. We want people from non-English-speaking backgrounds to be able to use and leverage that opportunity to have two strong languages. That is good for our state, but it does identify a strong weakness we have in encouraging young people who are from an English-speaking background to pick up that second language. That is a deficiency that many states in Australia have and that many English-speaking countries around the world have.

Just because it is a problem that we share with many places around the world does not mean that it is not a clear problem that we need to pick up on here in South Australia. That is why in August the Liberal Party announced a suite of measures to improve the opportunities for language teachers to learn their trade, to incentivise students to undertake language studies in schools and to make sure that we can really focus on building our capacity as a community, as a state and as a nation to be able to engage positively with the world. And get this: it also improves academic performance more broadly. Learning a language other than English is a terrific driver for mental development generally, and understanding one's own use of English is improved from learning a second language.

Returning to the detail of the bill itself, the bill was identified as being on the cards some time ago. The current member for MacKillop, I believe—I do not recall the year, but it had a one in the front of it—was in parliament and chaired a committee that reviewed the education act under the Olsen government. We have had several premiers since then, but the act has not been reformed since then.

The act was introduced in 1972 and there is some older use of legislative terminology, so that is a reason to reform it. There are references in the current act to positions that no longer exist, and that is a reason to reform it. They are not substantial reasons but, as with all acts, they develop over time; they get added to, like renovating a house or adding an extension. It can be a good house and it can work well, but sometimes we benefit from just building a fresh house and, to stretch the metaphor possibly too far, so it is with this bill: we are knocking down the old Education Act and the old Children's Services Act and building a new education and children's services act.

While modern is newer, that does not always make it better and there are, as I said, aspects of this bill that are not necessarily perfect and will need some more work. What I am going to call the Williams review, which dealt with this issue when Malcolm Buckby was the education minister under the Olsen and then Kerin governments, suggested a number of changes. They even got to the point of producing a draft bill, but it did not come to parliament in time before the 2002 election.

Consequently, the new Rann government after the May 2002 changeover decided not to proceed. I believe Trish White was the education minister at the time and was subsequently replaced by Dr Jane Lomax-Smith. Under Dr Lomax-Smith's tenure as minister there were further reviews. The education department in South Australia has been reviewed as often as anything that I can think of. However, under the Hon. Dr Lomax-Smith's tenure as minister, there were proposals put prior to the 2010 election that would have given effect to some substantial reforms, at least in relation to issues to do with school attendance and truancy.

It is interesting that those measures were lauded in 2009 with great fanfare. The then minister and the then government got significant headlines and there were very positive radio interviews. In fact, I was on Leon Byner's show not that long ago and we were talking about it. Leon asked, 'Whatever happened to those reviews promised by Jane Lomax-Smith, those improvements to this by Jane Lomax-Smith in 2008 or 2009?' Of course, after the government won the 2010 election, the parliament having been prorogued and the education bill having lapsed, the government never got around to introducing it because I do not think they really believed in it.

However, there was some pressure in the media and there were some concerns. There were some examples of shocking cases of child neglect and abandonment that could have been picked up if the truancy aspect of the child's behaviour had been picked up on. The minister and the government identified that they would rediscover this purpose after 14 years in government, as it was then, and take some action on truancy, and we applaud that. We do not agree with all the measures they have taken, and I will get to that when we get to the detail in the bill, but we applaud that and it has now come into this bill.

There has been a range of other reviews and inquiries that the education department has undergone, even in the seven years that I have been in the parliament. In 2012, KPMG did a review of the health and safety services unit. In 2013, PwC did a governance review, stage 1, for the Department for Education and Child Development. Of course, the issues at the western suburbs school, which I will just refer to for the moment as the Debelle inquiry—although I promise you we will be talking a bit more about the Debelle inquiry in relation to this bill—was a royal commission into an absolutely shocking scandal that involved several ministers and a number of people in the department. I think that really had a profound influence on the way we view governance in schools and, of course, the handling of child protection matters.

We also subsequently had the Allen review of September 2013 into how to consider the recommendations of the KPMG review, the PwC review and the Debelle review and put that into practice. Of course, then there was the Pike review into local school governance, and there were some others as well. We had changes of CEO. We had the Premier evicting CEOs he did not feel were right for the position and doing an international search, and he came up with Mr Bartley, who came over and put education and child protection all in the same department, and that did not work out.

Finally, after another royal commission and after the pleadings of all the stakeholders who were asked—anybody who was asked said that the education department and the child protection department should not be together—the Premier put them aside. Meanwhile, we had further CEOs appointed. The international search that came up with Mr Bartley not having quite worked out, the department then was led by the former senior police officer, Tony Harrison, who has now been moved to the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion.

We are now in the situation where we have another CEO, appointed last year, Mr Rick Persse, who retains that position to the current day. There has been a lot of upheaval in the department. Late last year, nearly a year ago, after having promised law reform in the truancy space for some time, which I referred to earlier, the government finally said, 'Okay, we are going to have a bill that we will put out for public consultation to reform the whole of the act.' That was released and people could have their say on the website, and that is nice.

There were a number of stakeholders who indicated that they would have liked that bill to be directly drawn to their attention. Nevertheless, it was publicly released and a number of stakeholders had their say at that point in time. At that time, to try to gain an understanding of where the government was coming from so that potentially we could work with the government, my office made an approach to the minister's office and sought a briefing or a discussion to talk about it. However, the minister's office indicated that there was a public consultation process and that we could talk about it down the track once they had a bill to put to the parliament.

Through this year, we have been waiting for this bill. The consultation process was completed in the first half of this year and then we were waiting and waiting. Finally, in the last sitting week before the winter/spring break, the minister tabled this bill and gave her second reading explanation, which members can read for themselves. That is how we have reached this stage. The minister and her office kindly gave me the briefing last week regarding some of the details in the bill that we needed to clarify.

I appreciate that and I appreciate her office for their flexibility when we had a health issue at my end and needed to move that briefing, and we have had this week to look at it. I indicated that we have some amendments that we have given to parliamentary counsel. They will be ready next sitting week. I understand that it is the government's intention that we close the second reading debate this week, if we can, and deal with the committee stage next sitting week so that those amendments can be considered in full, as well as any potential government amendments that may follow. We are happy to work to that timetable.

I want to spend some time this morning on one of those reviews that I talked about—namely, the Debelle report—because it is tremendously important to the status of education in South Australia. I want to quote from one of the stakeholders who has indicated his particular concerns with aspects of the bill. The bill deals with everything in education. I will start by talking about governance because I think this is one of the serious issues where we need to improve the bill. Governing councils and parental engagement in local school communities is so important to achieving the best for our schools. It really lifts our local school communities when governing councils are working well in partnership with the principals with whom they are jointly responsible for management of the school.

The peak body for those governing councils—the umbrella body of which most of the governing councils of public schools in South Australia are members—is the South Australian Association of State School Organisations (SAASSO). I quote from a letter sent to me by their head, David Knuckey:

To look at this document, it's as if the Debelle Royal Commission never happened.

This Minister claims this is the biggest development in education in 40 years. This document sets parental involvement, community engagement, local control, transparency and accountability back 40 years….

It's disappointing that in a 9-page section on governing councils, on 8 of them the minister details how she may appoint, overrule, suspend, sack, gag, order, fine and limit the power of parents and volunteers. She also now enables DECD to do much the same.

Mr Knuckey goes on to write:

The purpose of local governing bodies or school boards is to ensure that every school can be tailored to the needs of the local community and the current population of students—rather than be dictated to by a central bureaucracy seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all model for public schools.

A government bureaucracy can have other objectives of a financial or political nature—while local parent communities are only concerned about their children's education. Also, as we have seen too often in South Australia, these bureaucracies can end up with poor cultures.

I will pause there for a moment to reflect on an example of this. I believe in 2011—and I am sure the member for Playford will correct me if I am wrong—the government instituted a budget measure. It was either in 2010 or 2011 that the government instituted a budget measure in which all of the co-located schools were forced to amalgamate. They included junior primary schools and primary schools, and in some cases primary schools and secondary schools, although the government did not proceed with most of the latter category. But the junior primary schools and primary schools, as a budget saving measure, were all forced to amalgamate.

There was quite a process that followed, and the act requires that process be gone through, but at that time the advocates for those schools—powerful advocates arguing strongly that their schools be looked after—were indeed the governing council chairs. While many DECD staff and some principals had the courage to speak out, it has to be remembered that it is difficult for such staff members to speak out publicly because they are employed by the department, by the minister. To criticise the minister or the government publicly on this is a significant step for them to take.

It is very important for the benefit and wellbeing of people associated with a school, who are employed by a school, that governing council chairs are able to speak fearlessly on behalf of the school community. In those cases, the government chose to ignore those calls of those local communities, but the democratic process requires that such advocacy be maintained and supported.

Clearly, Mr Knuckey identifies the importance of those local parent representatives in an advocacy space where the government's stated priorities at that time—I think the minister even admitted at the time that it was a budget savings measure—were those forced amalgamations. They were the government's priorities. Even if the decision does not go the parents' way in the long run, it is so important they have the chance to advocate so that they can get the best opportunity for their school, and some concessions were made. Mr Knuckey went on to write to me:

Having the local governing body independent from orders of the department makes them independent and their decisions transparent. This act ends this independence.

After the Debelle Royal Commission, ministers, the Premier, the CE of DECD and Justice Debelle condemned DECD in its treatment of the governing council. South Australia was told that the Weatherill Government would change the way it deals with parents.

Justice Debelle concluded that the parents on the council felt bullied and intimidated. This new act will only further this sense of being under the authority and autonomy of DECD.

Mr Knuckey then went on to identify some examples, some of which I will go into in substantially further detail. The principle that the opposition takes as a starting point is that, where this new bill changes the current act to remove powers from governing councils or their members and give powers to the minister that the minister does not have at the moment to direct governing councils and their members, we are very sceptical.

We are very likely to be moving amendments and seeking support in the other house if the government does not accept those amendments. It will give the minister the opportunity through the committee stage to explain why each of those new powers is being sought for the government. Frankly, as to some of these positions, it is hard to see why the government thinks it needs these powers to direct governing councils.

For example, the old act has a provision that the chair of the governing council should be a parent. It excludes categories of people to the point that a parent on the governing council must be the chair. The new bill has no such provision. I inform the house now that we are going to be moving an amendment to ensure that, as is the situation at the moment, a parent is able to be confident that they are going to be the chair of the governing council; in fact, that they must be the chair of the governing council. The current act has a provision that, in effect, means there is a parent majority on governing councils. The new bill creates so many exemptions to that as to, in effect, render that meaningless. We are going to be very sceptical of those exemptions and require that there be a parental majority.

There is, under this bill, a new set of powers for the minister. In clause 48, a new set of powers allows the minister to give broad directions to governing councils. In the briefing, we had a bit of a discussion about this. It was suggested that there might be disciplinary situations where this might be useful, but the framing of this section is very broad in the minister taking it on themselves to decide that action needs to be taken and directions need to be given to a governing council. We are certainly not satisfied at the moment that there are compelling reasons that these new powers should be included. We will give the minister an opportunity to explain that and give clear reasons why clause 48 is necessary, but as I say, we remain sceptical, and there are other reasons here.

I want to spend a moment dealing a little bit further with the Debelle report. It was, of course, a very challenging time, and the role of the governing council was one of the important matters Justice Debelle dealt with. One of the significant differences between this bill and the current act is the way disputes might be managed. Rather, it is not necessarily just between the current act and this bill, but what we would like to see in this bill are disputes within the governing council or indeed disputes between the minister and the governing council. Justice Debelle, at recommendation 22 of his report, said:

It is recommended that the Department establish a process of mediation for the resolution of disputes between the Department and the governing council of a school…

And the government says that they have completed that. The government's response says:

The Minister for Education and Child Development wrote to governing council chairs on 6 December and 23 December 2013 to outline the independent review of school and preschool governance in SA and to provide instructions associated with the specific recommendations of the Independent Education inquiry.

That is saying that some interim measures were put in place after the Debelle review and it was letting them know that the Pike review was underway and they could make submissions to the Pike review. The government's response goes on:

The public consultation on the Independent Review of government school and preschool governance commenced on 20 May 2014.

That is the Pike review. The response continues:

Submissions to the Issues Paper closed on 1 August 2014. The Hon Bronwyn Pike's Review Report was provided to the Minister…in December 2014. DECD has given in-principle support to the recommendations which are being implemented during 2015.

A dedicated Policy Adviser (Governance) has been appointed and commenced work on 11 May 2015. The Policy Adviser has responsibility to deal quickly with all inquiries, concerns and requests relating to the operation of school governing councils.

Debelle was in a situation where the act as it was said that the school constitutions or governing council constitutions had to have a dispute resolution mechanism. That was what they had, and then there were these issues in the Debelle report, which I will go on to after lunch, I suspect. Then Debelle recommended that we need a new process of mediation to resolve disputes between the department and the governing council of a school.

The minister and the government say that they have completed that, but what did they complete? They have the Policy Adviser (Governance) within DECD, who has been working there since 11 May 2015, who can be called. To put that very simply, the government's solution to a new dispute mechanism needed between schools, governing councils and the department is to have someone in the department whom schools can contact to see what the boss of that person in the department might do better. It is not an independent dispute resolution mechanism. It is certainly not what Debelle envisaged.

I will tell you another thing—we will get to it—it is not what Bronwyn Pike envisaged either. The Pike review talks about the need for mediation to be used, not having a departmental officer as the go-to person to resolve these disputes. An independent mediator suggested by Pike, a new review mechanism suggested by Debelle—we have none of those things. We have a staff member in the department whom school governing councils are supposed to go to to resolve their disputes with the government. It is not the way forward.

What does this bill do? It actually removes even the identification of any dispute mechanism at all. There is nothing in the bill about dispute mechanisms, as far as we can tell. If I am mistaken, or if there is in fact some draft regulation where the government is going to be identifying this excellent new dispute resolution mechanism, then great, the minister can say so in her second reading response, but it certainly does not appear at the moment.

Recommendation 23 of the Debelle report is probably even more problematic. Justice Debelle said it is recommended that provision be made to establish a fund from which governing councils can draw funding to enable a governing council to obtain independent legal advice when that governing council is in dispute with the department, and that the decision as to whether it is necessary or appropriate for a governing council to obtain such funding be made by the person who holds the office of the Crown Solicitor.

Debelle is very clear: you need to have a fund, a legal fund, so that when governing councils are in dispute and they need legal advice they can draw from that fund to be administered by the Crown Solicitor, because he is independent from the education department, and governing councils can draw from that fund to get advice. This would have been particularly important in the issue of Debelle. We will go into it but, fundamentally the governing council, if they had had legal advice independently, could have provided that legal advice to the department, who probably would have acted quite differently, because the legal advice that they had received was subsequently found somewhat wanting.

The government says that they have done this. It says 'completed by DECD' right here on this government's document identifying the government's response to the Debelle inquiry. It says that they have completed this. We went through this in estimates a bit, and it became clear that they have not. The government, in saying how it has been completed—I am not going to read the thing again; it is the same set of words that they used in relation to the previous recommendation—talks about writing to school council chairs. It talks about the Pike review and then it states:

A dedicated Policy Adviser (Governance) has been appointed and commenced work on 11 May 2015. The Policy Advisor has responsibility to deal quickly with all inquiries…

And so forth. This same policy adviser who is supposed to be the one to resolve disputes between governing councils and the government is also the one who is going to identify whether or not schools get the money from the education department to pay for their independent legal advice.

It is not an independent system, and the opposition will be seeking to introduce this Debelle mechanism as suggested by commissioner Debelle. We hope the government will rethink this, because they accepted the recommendation. They say they have completed the recommendation. What we would like now—and this bill is a perfect opportunity to do it—is for them to actually do just what they have said: complete the recommendation. School governing councils, to have the local autonomy and the authority that they need to deal with these situations, deserve this fund suggested by Debelle.

Here is the thing: we have 500 government education sites in South Australia, and most governing councils, most schools, will never have a situation like this arise in their existence, in their history or in their future. We hope that that is the case. We hope it would be unnecessary to draw from this fund, but we know that there are examples where it would have been drawn from, the example of the Debelle inquiry, to start with.

As legislators, we have a responsibility not just to legislate for the convenience of the government or for the neatest way of getting the smallest piece of legislation available. We have to think about what would happen in the scenario where things do not go the way that they should. We have to contemplate, if a situation such as arose in the Debelle inquiry, for which we have significant evidence, arose again, what would be the best way to deal with it. I have not heard anyone from the government argue that Commissioner Debelle's recommendations were poor or ill thought out.

Everyone in the government was falling over themselves for two years to agree to them all and to say, 'Yes, we made mistakes, but now we have taken on board everything that has been suggested. We know better now. We have learnt.' That is what they were saying. They were not saying that he was wrong; they were saying, 'We have done what he said,' but they have not. This is where we can fix it. We can fix it in this very bill, and I hope that we do. It is worth traversing some of the issues that led to the Debelle inquiry. I will quote a little bit from the inquiry, starting at paragraph 637, which relates to the role of a governing council:

637. The events at the [Largs Bay Primary School] draws attention to the role of governing councils in schools operated under the aegis of the Department and, more particularly, to the extent of the powers and functions of governing councils. At least four members of the Governing Council of the metropolitan school held the view that the school should send a letter to parents who had children in the OSHC service, if not also to all parents with children at the school informing them of the conviction of [Mr Harvey: he is convicted; he is in gaol]. Questions were being asked as to the extent of the powers of the Governing Council to send a letter. The principal of the school, acting on the direction of the Department, did not agree to send such a letter. It is relevant to ask what the position would have been had a majority of the members of the Governing Council resolved that a letter should be sent to all parents of the school informing them of the conviction of [Mr Harvey] and the principal, acting on the advice or direction of the Department, had disagreed with that resolution.

638. A number of separate questions have to be considered. They are:

1. Does a governing council have power to send a letter to parents to inform them that a member of the staff of the school has committed a sexual offence?

2. What mechanism is available to resolve a dispute between a governing council and the principal of the school?

3. By what means can a governing council obtain independent legal advice?

These questions then lead to the question what is the true extent of the powers and functions of governing councils in schools operated by the Department and to the further question as to what in truth is the position of the governing council. Is it a body that in fact governs the school or is its role more akin to that of an advisory body? Questions concerning the extent of the powers and functions of governing councils are not confined to [Largs Bay Primary School]. Evidence at this Inquiry demonstrated that governing councils at other schools have from time to time sought legal advice as to the extent of their role and responsibilities.

The Powers of a Governing Council

639. Governing councils are school councils established pursuant to section 88 of the Education Act.

That is the existing Education Act. It continues:

Although the Act distinguishes between governing councils and school councils, it does not spell out if there is in reality any difference between them. It is clear that in order to become a governing council, a school council must have particular provisions in its constitution. Beyond that, there is no apparent difference.

That is a matter that I think is satisfactorily resolved in the new bill. Indeed, through the Debelle inquiry and more particularly in the Pike report that followed, there is an issue to do with clarity that is at stake. Most of the suggestions in the Pike report make significant reference to the need for improved clarity of powers. I will come back to Debelle and address more of his issues in a moment, but I will now discuss the Pike report.

Former Labor Victorian education minister Bronwyn Pike was appointed to undertake this review for the government. I was wondering, as I reread her review, given this was going into the nature of governance and governing councils, did former minister Pike suggest that governing councils needed their legislation changed or that there was a deficiency in the old education act that needed to be improved? That was what was at stake. Remarkably enough, on pages 8 and 9, there is a direct answer to that question. Former minister Pike says:

Part 8 of the Education Act establishes a legislative scheme supporting the creation, operation and control governing councils. The legislation is flexible and adequate to support strong local governance and does not need amendment.

This is the review on which the government was going forward with its contemplation of changes as to how governing councils operate. The review says, 'The legislation is flexible and adequate to support strong local governance and does not need amendment.' It goes on to say that again in other ways. The report continues:

The legislation makes it clear that both principals and governing councils have an active decision-making role. The current governing council model constitution complies with the legislation and specifies four key areas – strategic planning, determining policies, the application of financial resources, and presenting operational plans and reports to the Minister and school community. However the legislation also contemplates that a constitution can be modelled and tailored to meet the exact requirements of a particular school.

The functions of governing councils are outlined in the Education Act and model constitution however respondents consistently asked for greater clarification of these roles and a clearer explanation of the powers and responsibilities of councils and the principal.

And it goes on in all the recommendations that greater clarity is needed and not by changing the act. It is very clear that the powers and the responsibilities in the act are fine. What they wanted was more opportunities for training and more resources given to governing council members to better understand their positions, perhaps resources such as Commissioner Debelle recommended and the government said they accepted, having a legal fund, for example. That resource is an opportunity.

Support provided to governing councils is what was requested. What the government responded with is this bill, which removes powers from parents and gives powers to the minister. It removes autonomy from parents and gives the opportunity to the minister to direct parents and local school councils what to do, to remove parents from the governing council, if necessary, and to exempt a school from the requirement that they have a parental majority on the governing council.

This whole question of whether a parent should be the chair of the governing council is barmy. Since I noticed this, I have spoken to stakeholder groups and principal representatives. I have also spoken at governing council meetings and I have asked the question of parents, teachers and principals: is there some issue with parents being the chair automatically of governing councils? Is there some better solution that is being talked about in schools or the education department that I have not heard of?

Everyone was very clear in their response: they said, no, the chair of a governing council should be a parent. This is the opportunity that parents have to contribute to the direction and governance of the school. While the partnership between principals, school leaders, staff and parents is critical—and it is critical that that culture is done very well—that partnership already has one power centre.

There is case law—Australian Education Union v Chief Executive, from 2007, I think—that established that, as a chief executive can direct a principal to do something, the principal effectively has a veto in legal terms in decisions of governing council, but at the same time the principal is managing the school's governance jointly with the governing council, which is the parent community's opportunity to apply their point of view. In schools that are operating well with governing councils that are operating well, everyone sees it as a partnership, as working together.

In my time on governing councils I have only very rarely seen votes take place where there has been dispute, dissent or acrimony. Occasionally, when we are talking about materials and service charges somebody might have a philosophical objection and it will be calmly talked about, understood and respected and a vote might be taken.

I remember when the Campbelltown Primary School and the Charles Campbell Secondary School combined to become Charles Campbell College votes were taken as to who would comprise the membership of that governing council. There were more governing councils from the previous two schools than were allowed on the new governing council, so, of course, there were some winners and losers there, but it was done in a positive way. Almost entirely for the most part, governing councils work in a positive, collaborative manner as a real partnership, and that is what we should be striving for.

The bill changes that power balance, which is already weighted towards the department having power over the parent body. It takes more powers away from parents by giving the minister the opportunity to direct them and to remove them, more so than they do at the moment. Of course, there needs to be some mechanism there and there is in the current act. In our view, the powers that the minister has at the moment are sufficient to deal with a problem that a governing council may have.

The clear direction provided by the peak body for governing councils in South Australia is that the direction this bill takes ignores the lessons of the Debelle inquiry and sets school governance back. The parents of South Australia deserve better than that. I think that by working together over the next couple of weeks, we will be able to improve this. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.