Education and Children's Services Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (16:10): In my introductory remarks before lunch, members might recall that I was reminding the house of the context, which involved many reports and reviews over a long period of time, starting with the member for MacKillop's review when he was chairing that in the Olsen government era several premiers ago, several ministers ago, several CEOs ago and several departmental restructures ago.

When the minister in her explanation says that this is the most significant legislative reform in 40 years, or words to that effect, she of course does so confident in the knowledge that nothing has happened for the last 15 years, at least, that the government has been in place and that updating the act is something that could have been attended to some time ago. But now we are here updating the act, and we are very excited about it—five weeks from the end of this parliament.

I think I might have made a comment before lunch, but in case I did not I will make it now, that had this legislation been brought to the house in a timely manner, had the consultation document that went out at the end of last year gone out several months earlier, they could have had feedback by the end of last year. They could have introduced this bill in February or March, rather than in August—in the last sitting week before the winter break, with five sitting weeks after the break—then we would have had time to deal with amendments slowly and methodically and come to a landing that the whole parliament would have been very proud of. I hope we still have that opportunity.

I am looking forward to the minister engaging very positively, as she sometimes does, and hopefully we can deal with some of these points of contention. One of those reviews that I spoke about, a significant review that I think has had a lasting impact on the psyche of the people of South Australia, was the Debelle royal commission. The Debelle report makes a number of important statements, findings and recommendations that I fear the bill does not at the moment fully take into consideration and demonstrates a lack of understanding of some of the direction that Debelle was pushing the education department to take.

I am going to quote excerpts very selectively that highlight this issue because this is a very important document. As I said before lunch, ministers and the government were falling over themselves to say how strongly they were advocating it and how truthfully they were delivering on its recommendations. It is important to bring these things to the house's attention so that we can judge them against the bill that is before the house today.

We talked about the nature of governing councils and their relationship with the principal. Bruce Debelle, in relation to the functions of the principal, in paragraph 643 says:

It is unnecessary to set out all the functions of the principal in council. It is sufficient to refer to the opening words of clauses 6 and 6.1 [of the Education Act].

He goes on to say:

The functions of the Principal in Council are undertaken in the context of the Principal's joint responsibility with the Council for the governance of the school.

6.1 The Principal is answerable to the Chief Executive for providing educational leadership in the school and for other general responsibilities prescribed in the Act and Regulations.

The opening words of both clauses 5 and 6 state that the governing council and the principal of the school are jointly responsible for governance of the school. Standing alone, those clauses suggest that the governing council has quite extensive powers. The word 'governance'…as has been noted, both the powers and functions of a governing council must be exercised in accordance with the legislation, administrative instructions and the constitution of the governing council.

Thereby limiting the governing council, whereas the principal in exercising powers is, of course, directed by the chief executive. As Australian Education Union v Chief Executive DECS (2007) pointed out, a functionary must comply with those instructions. At paragraph 644, Debelle states:

The fact that a principal is answerable to the chief executive means that a principal is both accountable to the Chief Executive and is subject to the direction of the Chief Executive.

That is exactly what I just identified. Debelle goes on to say:

In addition, it appears that the intention of Regulation 42(1)(b) is that the matters listed therein are matters that are excluded from the powers and functions of a governing council. In other words, the principal is at liberty to deal with any of those matters independently of the governing council. This is a further limitation upon the powers of the governing council.

Without quoting the next paragraph, it is clear that, while these are limitations on the powers of the governing council, that does not need to be a problem. In fact, partnerships between governing councils and principals jointly responsible for the governance of a school can be something that enriches a school community and provides strong advocacy and encourages vibrancy and accountability in that school community. It is very positive, potentially. However, governing councils' powers are currently limited, and the problem that we are addressing is that this bill will limit them further. Debelle goes on at 648 to point out:

In addition to those limitations, section 96 of the Education Act [as it was] invests the Minister with power to issue administrative instructions to school councils.

And so it is in the new bill that we have us before us today, that similar administrative instructions can be put forward. At the time that Debelle was doing his inquiry, he identified that those instructions were lengthy and comprised 168 pages. Some of the powers that the minister had at that time included:

1. The Minister may direct a governing council to make amendments to its constitution.

2. The Minister has a discretion whether to approve an amendment to the constitution of a governing council.

3. The Minister has power to remove members of a school council for misconduct, failure or incapacity to carry out the duties of the office satisfactorily, or if irregularities have occurred in the conduct of the council, or for any other reasonable cause.

4. The Minister also has power to prohibit or restrict the exercise of the power of a governing council if, in the opinion of the Minister, it is necessary or desirable to do so.

This bill seeks to provide the minister with even further powers than those extensive powers. The point I make, and the point that Debelle makes, is that the minister's powers, the department's powers and the principal's powers are substantial in relation to governing councils. We want to encourage governing councils to take ownership and to feel ownership of their site so that parents can truly be represented in their school's deliberations.

Given the substantial powers that the minister, the department and the principal already have, why would we limit governing councils' powers further? Why would we reduce the scope of parental involvement in governing councils further than we already have? I think that there is a case that could be discussed about increasing the parental powers on governing councils from what we already have. What this bill does is diminish the powers of parents on governing councils.

It finally resolves, in Commissioner Debelle's comments, resolution of disputes and obtaining legal advice. Prior to lunch, I commented on the comments of SAASSO, the peak body for the governing council, on these matters. We will go back to Commissioner Debelle, and then I will leave the commissioner for the moment. In relation to resolution of disputes, at 654, Debelle states:

It seems that clause 24 of the model constitution is intended to provide a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. It provides that a school must participate in a scheme for the resolution of disputes between the governing council and the principal as prescribed in administrative instructions. However…[they provide] no…mechanism for resolution of disputes [and there is no] other administrative instruction regulating the resolution of disputes. In the absence of [that]…it would seem, therefore, that if there were a dispute between the governing council and the principal of a school, the dispute could ultimately be resolved pursuant to an administrative instruction from the Minister. I do not think that is a satisfactory situation. It gives the Minister power to override what might be a very valid position on the part of the governing council. It is clearly necessary for an administrative instruction to be drafted to provide a suitable means of resolving disputes. The Inquiry heard evidence that on some occasions, disputes between the principal and the governing council have been resolved by mediation. That would be an appropriate dispute resolution process provided that the mediator is a person entirely independent of the Department.

As we heard before, the response to Debelle that is identified on the department's website—and I have not heard that it is not the most recent response—identifies an officer in the education department to whom governing councils can go to discuss this matter if they want this resolved. That is the department's response to this specific recommendation and that particularly describes why it is important that the mediator be independent. The government's response is to have a policy officer, and this bill entrenches that power differential, unfortunately.

I am not saying it cannot be fixed; I think it can be fixed reasonably easily, and I hope that matter will be resolved in the amendments we put forward. It may well be that there are some examples that the minister can provide as to deficiencies in the current legislation, but I note that Debelle did not find those deficiencies and neither did the Pike review, as I quoted before lunch.

Debelle goes on to say in 655, in relation to obtaining legal advice (and this is the fund we discussed earlier):

Should a dispute exist between the governing council and the Department, the governing council may wish to obtain legal advice. On occasions, a governing council has sought advice on a matter where there is no dispute with the Department. The Department has then arranged for the governing council to be advised by the Crown Solicitor's Office. That is a commendable process. However, should a dispute exist between a governing council and the Department, it might be necessary for the governing council to obtain independent legal advice elsewhere. The funds of a governing council are, generally speaking, very limited. In many cases, a governing council would not have sufficient funds to pay for the cost of legal advice. One witness gave evidence that at one school the members of the governing council themselves paid for independent legal advice. There will be many governing councils who would not be able to act in that way.

The report then identifies, in relation to the case at the heart of the Debelle inquiry:

Had the Governing Council of [Largs Bay Primary School] been able to obtain access to independent legal advice, it would have quickly learned that there was no legal impediment to the sending of the letter to parents informing them of [Harvey's] conviction. The Governing Council could then have handed the legal opinion to the Department and in all likelihood, the Department would have sought advice whether the advice given to the Governing Council was correct. Had it done so, it would have quickly learned there was no reason in law why a letter could not have been sent to parents. The matter might have then resolved more quickly and more satisfactorily [for everybody].

That is why the opposition takes the words of Mr Debelle very seriously, but it is notable that the subsequent review of governance of schools, the Independent Review of Government School and Preschool Governance in South Australia by former minister Pike, makes some similar comments. On page 14 Pike writes:

From time to time there may be disagreements between the school or preschool governing council and the department. Whilst every attempt should be made for the parties to reach a mutually agreed position there may be times when this is not successful. If such a matter becomes a dispute, it is best dealt with by mediation.

It then describes what mediation is, and goes on:

On 23 December 2013, the Minister—

I assume, at the time, the now member for Wright—

established an interim process for the engagement of mediation services where the governing council of a school is in dispute with the department. It was deemed to be an interim process, as it was intended to be the subject of consultation through this review.

The report then talks about how good mediation is, saying:

A mediator cannot impose a decision upon the parties and it may be the case that an agreement is not able to be reached. In the instance where a dispute is unable to be resolved by mediation, further advice should be provided to councils about other avenues that may be available to them.

If the governing council of a school is in dispute with the department, there may be a need for a governing council to access independent legal advice.

On 23 December 2013, the Minister issued an administrative instruction specifying the process by which the governing council of a school can seek legal advice when in dispute with the department. The funding for any such legal advice will be drawn from existing departmental resources and will be automatic once the Crown Solicitor approves that the required criteria is met for the engagement of an independent legal practitioner. The Crown Solicitor is well placed to approve that independent legal advice be provided and that the department fund this advice.

It then goes on to talk about preschools, but I will mention it here rather than later:

With respect to disputes between a preschool governing council and the department, it would also be appropriate to develop a dispute resolution procedure.

And so forth. For all those reasons, the opposition supports the activation, through amendments to this bill, of the original Debelle suggestions, at least, in relation to disputes, the restoration of the identification of a dispute mechanism in the governing council constitution into the bill, but we are happy to talk to the minister if she has another way to put dispute resolution into the act. We are unclear as to why this dispute resolution mechanism was taken out of the act in favour of other things, and I think it is suitable that it be restored.

In relation to the implementation of the Debelle review, the KPMG report—this predates the Pike report—the PwC and the KPMG reports, the then minister, the now member for Wright, brought in Peter Allen, the Deputy Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Governance, in September 2013 to do a further report. The Allen review identified a number of things about which, in retrospect, we might have a different view. I note in one paragraph on page 9, it said:

The breadth of the department's responsibilities is without parallel in Australia, and now includes early childhood care and development services for South Australian families, including local family day care, preschool education, children's centres, out of school hours care programs, plus health and well being services that support parents, carers and children; South Australia's public education system, with the goal of delivering world class primary and secondary education in all areas of the curriculum; the facilities and infrastructure for children's centres, preschools, schools, and regional offices; and a departmental workforce of more than 28,000 employees.

Of course, that structure was found by a subsequent royal commission to be suboptimal, and we have moved on from there. We now have just a Department for Education and Child Development.

The Allen review identified that, in response to this brief, the department has committed itself to making it easier for families to access child health and development services, improving the safety and protection of children, establishing a focus on learning and achievement for young children and ensuring South Australia is recognised internationally as child friendly. I bring up this section because I note that the minister, in bringing this bill to the parliament has, in my view in quite a worthy manner, instituted a number of principles and objects that are in the act.

As the minister pointed out to me last week, there were no principles and objects in the initial act from 1972. It is the way legislation is written now. But there are some things that are not necessarily included in those principles and objects which might be obvious to include. It struck me that, when talking about the safety and protection of children, while that is fundamentally the purpose of the Department for Child Protection, we do have a duty of care to those children while they are in our schools as well, and I think that is something that would be worthy of having a discussion about at the committee stage.

The Allen review describes the 2012 KPMG report's findings. In particular, the review reported:

confusion and inconsistency about the structures and committees that govern the department,

a lack of transparency around decision making: information flows for decision making were unclear,

committees and groups operating with no clear purpose, terms of reference or linkage to the DECD strategy. In many cases alignment with strategic business planning to drive delivery of new DECD responsibilities was unclear,

a lack of formal discipline and processes in the conduct of (many) committees,

roles and responsibilities relating to governance were unclear,

silos and territorial approaches impacted on the approach to achieving DECD outcomes, and

lack of clarity about information flows from committees to departmental leaders for decision making.

It is not the purpose of this bill to instruct the minister or, indeed, now more appropriately his chief executive, how to structure the education department, but I highlight this point, as we have asked a number of questions in estimates, and I am sure the minister will be getting an answer soon in relation to the structure of the education department. These are important questions, and the Allen review from 2013 identifies the importance of the structure of the department in understanding how those information flows and systems work.

Debelle talks about structure as well. In a department as large as this, with a complexity of arrangements between schools and staff—Education Act staff and Public Sector Act staff—and the department itself and all of its administrative units, and then the minister, it is important that we have a clear understanding of how that structure works. As I say, we are looking forward to receiving answers to those questions. In fact, the Allen review goes on to say:

A conclusion of this review is that the department will be able to serve the government better by focussing on a manageable number of priorities to which meaningful and measurable progress indicators can be attached. Structure should follow function to foster alignment of effort in pursuit of government priorities.

And so forth. That was all part of the series of reviews that no doubt informed this act, and in some ways it did, and in some ways we hope it would do more. Let us go to the specific measures, and I will hopefully be able to do this in a way that we can finish the second reading at the prescribed time. We will do our best.

Starting with the first section, we mentioned briefly the objects and principles, which is clause 7 for those following at home. The new objects refer to public education being secular and culturally diverse. I am not objecting to those references at all, but they do not mention child wellbeing or safety, and I think that is worth noting.

Particularly, I note that the objects and principles at clause 7(1) state that the objects of this act include ensuring that education is of a high quality—that is good; we want to ensure that educational excellence is part of it—ensuring that children's services are of a high quality, ensuring the development of an accessible range of education and children's services that meet the needs of all groups in the community—that is fine—and then:

…promoting the involvement of parents, persons other than parents who are responsible for children and other members of the community in the provision of education and children's services to children and students in this State.

I highlight that point because it is tremendously important. I think it goes to why some of our concerns about the bill need to be addressed later on. I look forward to that discussion in the committee stage. I note that a servant of the public has just sent me an SMS saying that he is watching at home, which is tremendously exciting. He is a Labor candidate for parliament, no less.

I move on to clause 4, the application of the act to non-government schools. The minister made a point to me last week, which I do not think she will mind me repeating, that the Minister for Education is the Minister for Education in South Australia, not just for public education. That is something with which I, and certainly we on the Liberal side, wholeheartedly agree. The minister can speak for herself going forward; that was the extent of her comment.

We do not want to reduce the scope of the autonomy of independent schools and Catholic schools from the system because, of course, they offer something different that many parents wish for their families in the choices they make for their families. We do not want to reduce that scope, but the act has many benefits for independent schools and Catholic schools, and those sectors appreciate being given the opportunity to have things in this act that help them as well.

Because there are significant sections of the act that deal just with public schooling, clause 4 identifies a series of provisions in this act that should apply only to government schools. Those sections may well all be suitable, but I identify to the minister that when we go through the committee I want to explore some issues that have been raised by a couple of constituents. They may well be matters that have been dealt with, but there are questions. Rather than my reading it here, it might be easier to go through it in more detail in committee. I will provide a copy of some of these points to the minister.

Fundamentally, there are three or four sections where we might want to explore whether or not the act should apply to non-government schools; some are in definitions and some are in relation to family conferences. In particular, I identify in advance the question of whether the family conference sections relating to truancy would relate to a student who is enrolled in a non-government school but who otherwise meets the threshold of truancy.

Of course, the law requires that there be attendance at a school. Just because a student is not enrolled in a public school but is instead enrolled at a non-government school does not mean that they should be exempt from truancy provisions. In relation to those aspects where the principal of a school is perhaps involved in a family conference, what is the interplay between this act and the non-government school sector? I think that is an area worthy of teasing out somewhat.

Clauses 8 to 15 and also clauses 66 to 68 deal with information sharing. In the minister's second reading explanation, she said that these are:

…new provisions to enable improved sharing of information between schools, parents, the department and other state authorities to support the education, health, safety and wellbeing of children.

Clauses 66 to 68 provide an opportunity for the compulsion of the provision of that information about the child, which can potentially be with or without the parents' consent. Of course, in child protection matters one can imagine quite easily why that might be necessary. Therefore, at this stage we do not propose any amendments to those provisions and we see them as being a positive inclusion.

Clauses 16 to 34 deal with preschools and children's centres. I will give the minister, in her second reading speech perhaps, an invitation to respond to a concern that has been put to me about preschool staffing and leadership. There is a suggestion that there is what has been described to me as a secretive DECD working party that is promoting a new model of preschool leadership causing widespread consternation. The working party apparently includes the Early Childhood Development Strategy team. There is an interim evaluation report that makes reference to some of these works.

The suggestion is that there is a new model being developed intended to refocus children's centres away from education and towards health services and health professionals. Clause 121 of the proposed bill provides:

…a person may be employed under this section to provide health, social or other non-education services in relation to schools and children's services centres.

I invite the minister to advise in her response whether she has been briefed on these suggestions and what guarantees she can give to concerned staff that existing well-based qualifications and classifications will be maintained. That has been a request that has been put to me, and indeed I did give the minister some notice of it last week, and the minister yesterday was kind enough to write to me confirming:

The Teachers Registration and Standards Act 2004 requires a school principal, preschool director or teacher at a school, preschool or prescribed service to hold teacher registration. Accordingly, any teaching or leadership position in a school, preschool or children's centre that leads or is responsible for education delivery must be held by a registered teacher.

If the minister feels that there is anything that she needs to add to that, then I invite her to do that in her second reading response, or otherwise we can tease it out in the committee.

Further, in relation to preschools and children's centres, I note that this effectively will be bringing into some consistency the government's preschool models with school models. These would be the stand-alone preschools, those not operating as part of a school. There are some slight differences that probably need to be taken into account. I put forward some of the comments that former minister Pike made in her report on page 11 in the Independent Review of School and Preschool Governance in South Australia, where she said:

Involvement in preschool governance is highly valued and often leads to a further governance role in schools or other community organisations. There are some special factors that complicate governance and present challenges for standalone public preschools.

Many parents are only connected to the preschool for 12 months as that is the period of their children's enrolment. This means that there is often a new and possibly inexperienced preschool governing council each year. By the time the new members learn their roles and responsibilities the year could be well underway.

It further goes on to talk about dispute resolution processes needed for both preschools and governing councils. Some of the feedback the Pike review received from members of preschool governing councils and others who submitted to that review identified that it was a significant benefit, encouraging parental involvement through family-focused activities, providing opportunities to connect and build positive relationships outside the usual drop-off and pick-up context, providing a welcoming environment within the preschool, handling issues with transparency and a mutual willingness to contribute ideas.

Clearly, we want to have modern, suitable opportunities for governance for preschools; however, some things we take for granted in schools. Often people on governing councils at schools, if they have two children at the school a couple of years apart, have done more than 10 years on governing councils. On one governing council I have been involved with the chair was the chair for eight years and did that role terrifically well and remained passionate. It is much harder for preschools to have that body of knowledge kept for a lengthy period of time if a child is there for one year or, particularly if there are siblings, a couple of years.

I think there may well be an opportunity where we could be a bit more flexible with the governing council arrangements for preschools. Broadly, at this stage the opposition does not propose any amendments to these clauses. However, I do note that, as we are going to be in committee in about two or three weeks' time, subsequently there may be other suggestions to the Legislative Council. I am not the fount of all wisdom. We may well consider other things. The government may propose amendments, and that is fine as well. So we may potentially come to a nuanced position, but at this stage we are not proposing any amendments.

We then move on to clause 35, which mirrors clause 83—Corporal punishment prohibited. I want to comment on this a little bit because at the risk of being controversial—not very controversial, probably—it is an issue that I am quite concerned about. According to clause 83:

(1) Corporal punishment (however described) must not be imposed on a student.

(2) The Chief Executive must take all reasonable steps to ensure that principals, officers of the teaching service and all other persons employed in, or in relation to, Government schools comply with [that section].

(3) For the purposes of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935

, corporal punishment will be taken not to amount to conduct that lies within limits of what would be generally accepted in the community as normal incidents of social interaction or community life.

That may well be necessary for the Criminal Law Consolidation Act. In my view, this is very important to go into the act. It was not in the act before, as far as I am aware. It has been a practice and policy across all government and non-government sites for a very long time. I say 'a very long time', but we are talking about a couple of decades. I was talking to somebody two days ago who was recounting experiences of coping a severe beating by a prefect at their school—not even a staff member, but a prefect.

That person was in their 70s, and it has been a long time since that took place, but it is not that long ago. It is within the lifetime of people who are coming to have lunch with members of parliament to talk about their issues. That is appalling. It left a scar on their relationship with their school and they completely disconnected with their education. It had appalling effects. I am not raising issues in relation to discipline within the home, as that is a whole other question. But within the school environment, when a parent entrusts a child to attend a school, there is a duty of care that we now respect, and it is tremendously important that we do.

It was not that long ago. I was in primary school at a time when the ruler over the wrist was still a common occurrence for turning up 10 minutes late to school. This did not happen in my case—I am going to take the opportunity not to incriminate myself in this, but let us say that I am talking about a friend. I am certainly not going to besmirch my parents, because my mother would never have allowed this to happen.

Let's say that there was a family situation going on in the morning and the master of the school, to apply consistency, gives a child three whacks around the wrist with a wooden ruler. I am 38 years old; it is really not that long ago that this was considered not just acceptable but a fair way of going about your business. It is not. It does not add anything to a child's education. It is not something of benefit, and I am very pleased to see it in the legislation. So much for corporal punishment.

I have already spent some time on the governance of schools so I do not want to re-tread all of the old ground, but I might raise a couple of new issues that I did not dwell on before. Again, these might be issues the minister might take on board and think about in the second reading response, or potentially have amendments that she might contemplate that we might look at. We will certainly ask some question.

There is a relationship between associated committees, whether it is parents and friends groups at school, or it might be the rowing club at the school, or it might be the uniform body at the school. Those are quite different bodies, but a suggestion has been put to me by one interested person who knows a bit about the area: this new bill, if enacted in its current form, would treat all of those bodies in the same way as subsidiary bodies of the governing council, whereas they might actually see themselves as independent.

Indeed, I believe at the moment an associated body, whether it is parents and friends, certainly a uniform committee, would usually be a function of the governing council. A parents and friends would probably not. It might be formed by a group of parents with the permission of the principal. I am not making this as a bold claim. I would be interested in the minister's advice and her response, if she would like to, or we can come back to it in the committee stage to explore it further. If this new act did just mean that those affiliated committees were subsidiaries of governing councils, then I think that would be potentially problematic.

We would like to explore that a bit further later on because I think the work of parents and friends and fundraising groups in schools is different from the work of governing councils. It is a different set of skills, and quite frankly it is often a different set of interests. I have been on governing councils where the governing council has wanted to form a fundraising subgroup but the people who were interested in that work were not necessarily involved with the governing council group of people. There can be quite good reasons why those things should be kept separate, but we can explore that further. I do not think it is going to unnecessarily detain us too long.

In relation to the governing council matters, I spent some time on it earlier. I indicate that the opposition will be looking at an amendment to effectively limit the minister's powers in relation to governing councils to what the minister has at the moment and not extended in the way that this bill potentially does. We invite the minister to identify reasons why some of the extensions of power have been presented. For example, the minister has a power in this bill to appoint members to governing council outside of that council's institutions.

It has been suggested to me in relation to that particular point that it might just be limited to a couple of clauses where the minister could appoint somebody. It is not an unfettered power, only related specifically to clause 38(3)(b) where an appointment may be made following the failure of an election on the basis that the school constitution may or may not have foreseen such circumstances or clause 17(2) which allows the minister to appoint persons to represent preschool kids in the case where a school-based preschool is established in relation to an existing school; that is, the council has expanded to ensure that the preschool is represented. If that is the case, then that might not be so stressful, but we would like that issue clarified.

In the current act, as I said before, there is clear provision at 84(1)(a)(i) of the current act that parents comprise the majority of members, except in an adult education school, and then again at 84(1)(a)(iv) that the presiding member not be a member of the staff of the school or a person employed in an administrative unit for which the minister is responsible. At least for the school governing councils our position intends to restore these provisions from the current act, and we will put forward amendments to do so.

I invite the minister again, if there are reasons for these current requirements to be removed, to feel free to put those forward. Clause 38(3) allows the minister to make appointments to governing councils and for the council to ignore the parent majority rule if insufficient parents nominate. The application of this clause has two matters identified. There can be a supplementary election or the minister can appoint.

What I believe happens at the moment, and I will need to check whether this is in the act or the regulations or just in practice, is that if a supplementary election does not provide the outcome, then the governing council itself can appoint people to the governing council. That may well be a function of the governing council constitution. What I do not want to see is a situation where parents feel that their rights through their governing council body, either to elect through a supplementary election or appoint to themselves through the governing council, are superseded by a ministerial appointment.

We identified some cases before where there were disputes between governing councils and departments, governing councils and ministers, for political decisions, whether that is the forced amalgamations or whether that is the situation described in Debelle or elsewhere. We do not want a situation where if there is a casual vacancy there a governing council feels like they can have someone imposed on them by the person or the department with which they are having a dispute.

We would be looking to do some sort of amendment there to at least require that the supplementary election must take place first, before allowing the provisions of the ministerial appointment. We will possibly even look at putting in the legislation that the governing council can itself nominate people in the case where a supplementary election does not provide any nominations.

Clauses 40(1) and 40(2) impose $20,000 fines for a failure to disclose a conflict of interest by parents. It has been pointed out to me by some advocates that these are double similar fines in relation to failure to declare serious issues affecting other classes of people or making false statements to the Teachers Registration Board, for example. On investigation, I am told that the $20,000 was chosen for the sake of consistency with such offences in other acts. The amount was chosen following the changes to the Public Sector (Honesty and Accountability) Act in 2009.

However, there are other examples, a couple of which I have just identified, where the numbers are different ($10,000). I think that a court would probably be able to figure out that the parliament does not necessarily mean $20,000 in all cases; that is what courts do. We do not propose any change here, but I note for the record that we do not see that these offences should necessarily be double the others. I think that the remedy is maybe to update the other offences rather than to change this suggestion.

In clause 48, there is a new set of powers that allows the minister to give broad directions to governing councils. We raised this with the minister last week and were advised—I do not want to put words in her mouth unfairly; she can correct me if I get this wrong—that this would be to deal with certain disciplinary situations. We are not convinced at this stage that there are clear examples of why these powers are necessary in addition to the other powers that a minister already has.

I am concerned that, again in the Debelle case, this clause would have meant that certain governing council members might have been removed because of the poor advice that the department was giving about what was appropriate behaviour by a governing council in relation to the sending of a letter or the distribution of material. The minister at the time, who is no longer in this parliament, certainly took a very dim view of what subsequently became accepted practice of providing information to the community about a child sexual assault.

I do not want to go over old ground, but it is clear to me that there are cases where a minister—not this minister but other ministers—might not behave with the best intent or the best advice. A minister might use the power provided or proposed under clause 48 to discipline a governing council member who is actually doing nothing wrong but is held by a minister operating on poor advice to be doing something wrong. I do not know that this power is necessary. If the minister has some examples of how it might be used or necessary, then maybe we can come to a compromise, but at the moment the opposition is not minded to support it.

Clauses 50 and 51 seem to broaden the powers of the minister to suspend a governing council beyond what the act currently allows. The current act allows the minister to prohibit or restrict the exercise of a specified power or the performance of a specified function for a specified period. I am not sure that needs to be broadened, so we will be looking at amendments to effectively keep the current arrangements within the context of the new bill. I think we have gone over the dispute mechanism and the governing council legal fund more than adequately, so I will move on from the governance issues. Important as they are, I think two hours on them is probably enough.

School amalgamations and closures are dealt with in clauses 52 to 56. Broadly, these are the same as existing powers. There is a new rule at clause 54(4) that if the review does not report on time—and there is a minimum three-month time limit in the preceding clause, from memory—then it is taken to be recommending the closure or amalgamation. This is to ensure that the review body does not unnecessarily delay matters as a tactic to stop the report from coming in.

I did think of one example where this might be problematic, and again we are going back to that 2011 situation where there were 20 or 25 reviews happening at the same time and many of the ministerial appointments to those reviews were potentially the same people. It was possible on those occasions that those reviews might have been delayed by the people who were actually seeking to close the school. Having the delay producing that outcome might potentially be a tactic on the other side as well, but I think the political negative consequences of anyone taking that track would be quite profound. So I am happy to look at any amendments that others might suggest, but I do not think that they are very necessary.

In relation to the next section, 57 to 64, to do with special schools, this area is largely similar to the existing act and the regulations, or at least in practice. At clause 63, there are some new provisions in relation to the powers of the chief executive being able to direct that a child be enrolled in a particular school. In particular, it seems to remove existing references to consulting parents in section 75A of the current act.

I acknowledge that the minister, in relation to this matter which we discussed with her last week, wrote to me saying, 'I am open to considering how consultation should occur under this power and will provide you with a government amendment in due course.' I am very pleased to see that and I thank the minister for that response. We are happy to look at the government's amendment and we will offer our own and maybe we can split the difference and see how we go. I think we are of one mind on this issue but, given that it made its way into the original bill, I think it is important that I spend a moment on it.

I am no expert in this area. I had about a year as the shadow minister for disabilities, which was a tremendously important time in my understanding of this tremendously broad and diverse section of the community that has many different needs and many different opportunities and abilities. I spent some tremendous afternoons, mornings and weekends with people in this community. I am particularly thinking about parents here. A very special group of people are those parents of children with disabilities who have a love for a child and are presented with challenges that most parents do not have, particularly in relation to certain services or opportunities to ensure that their child achieves everything that they can in life and truly fulfils their potential in every way.

Traditionally, there was a maze for a parent of a child with a disability, who needed special support services. We hope the National Disability Insurance Scheme will assist in many ways in bringing this forward. When it comes to education, there are again challenges. We have education centres, which used to be called special schools, and we have special classes, special units in schools and the provision of those services is important.

In the last couple of weeks, I have seen a couple of extraordinary success stories in the public system. I will single out Murray Bridge High School because the head of the Disability Unit has been nominated for an international teaching award, and we wish her well. It is amazing to see the passion and how hard the families of students with disabilities work to get the best outcome for their child. The capacity for those families and, where possible, the child with a disability to have the authority and autonomy to make decisions that are in their own best interests and their family's best interests is tremendously important.

There could be circumstances in which the power described in the act for the chief executive to make very difficult decisions might need to be put into place, but it would only be done in limited circumstances. It is not something we would like to do. It is absolutely necessary in this day and age that the parents be involved in that decision, even when it is a decision that they might not necessarily support. There are circumstances in which the chief executive might be forced to make that decision. There must be a mechanism whereby the parents have the opportunity to have a say, as they do in the current act.

Moving onto adult students very briefly, dealt with in clause 65, I am not aware of any urgent need for us to amend that provision. Clauses 69 to 76 deal with compulsory enrolment, attendance and truancy. I have previously brought to the house's attention the need for us to clarify how these family conference issues operate with non-government schools. I should say that the family conferences introduced under this act are along the lines that we in the Liberal Party talked about needing to see more of, particularly when we released our truancy policy last year, so we are pleased to see this described in the bill.

Obviously, there are some things that are identified as being the chief executive's responsibilities in calling these conferences. In practice, that would of course be done as a delegated power, I would assume, to principals or attendance officers. I note that the Liberal Party truancy policy would increase by 50 per cent the number of attendance officers working in our schools, which will fit in very well with this provision in the bill, so we are very pleased to see it.

There is long history in relation to these truancy issues. In my introductory remarks, I suggested some of the background to these measures in the bill. Certainly, when this bill was first talked about by the current minister, it was in the context of truancy being a topic of public interest. The minister suggested that a review of the whole Education Act would include improvements to the truancy provisions. I do not want to split hairs, but there are some slight differences between what the Liberal Party has proposed in changes to the truancy legislation and what the government has proposed, but broadly it is now heading in the same direction. We might look at some details, but I do not see any wholesale amendments to the provisions from 69 to 76, and there may even be none.

However, we do have a problem with the idea of these fines being expiable, and I will explain why. The fine is to be increased by this legislation, but most parents are not going be impacted by this measure. The impact of the truancy fine is to deal with a small cohort of parents, to get their attention to ensure that this is a serious matter. The previous fine had not been increased for about a decade, and the increase a decade ago was from a very small amount that had not been increased in 20 years. Even going with inflation over the last 30 years, the fine for a truancy offence that is proposed in this bill is probably about the mark of where it was 30 or 40 years ago.

The point is that there has to be a stick that goes with the carrot for the benefit of the child going to school. If the child does not go to school, and you are not interested in engaging with the school, and you are not interested in taking steps to talk about getting your child back to school, then a court might be paying attention to you, and there is a reason you want to pay attention to that, and that is the fine. The family conference is where the action is. The family conference is bringing together the stakeholders, the relevant professionals who will find ways to get a child back to school.

Having an expiation notice for the fine I think undermines the good work altogether because the consequence of a child not being at school for five or 10 days over the course of the term is an expiation notice up to the value of $750, as this legislation proposes at clause 140(2)(y). An expiation notice is a blunt instrument. It is an instrument that can be applied to a family when their child does not come to school. It is applied because it is easier to do an expiation notice than the family conference setting.

The family conference setting is a complex matter that involves bringing a whole group of people together. It involves bringing in the student, potentially—and their family might have had severe difficulties with the school in the past—and working through a solution to find out what we need to do to get this child to school. That is a complex mechanism, and it is one that we absolutely support and that we need to resource, one that the Liberal Party wants to work with. That is why we are putting more resources in our policies into attendance officers.

However, rather than going through all that hassle, a school staff member is provided with the opportunity to instead apply an expiation notice and say, 'Okay, the family needs to do that.' I think the minister, in answering a question from the member for Florey earlier this year, suggested that it would certainly get her attention, and I imagine it would. The thing is that these families are not in the situation of a minister of the Crown, and an expiation notice of $750 might be a blunt instrument that might get the issue to the attention and the eyes of the principal of the school on that day but is not going to do anything to solve the problem.

Here is the thing: a $5,000 fine would be rarely applied. A $5,000 fine would be applied only if there were a court setting that found that was the response necessary. Even going through the process of taking the family to court is, in itself, an intervention. It is more valuable, and a court would be likely to impose the level set at the same level as the expiation notice, but the court intervention itself is of more benefit than just providing the expiation notice. The fact that a person might be forced to go to court makes them far more likely to involve themselves in the mediation session. Having an expiation notice takes that away.

In our view, the expiation notice is of no value in dealing with these truancy issues, and so the opposition will be seeking amendments that will remove the expiation notice. We take truancy very seriously. The loss of time from a child's education through being absent from school for five or 10 days a term is quite profound, and it leads to problems in later life. We have identified, coronial inquest after coronial inquest into child deaths or neglect, where truancy has been a warning, a flashing beacon, and we need to be paying attention to this and identify it.

According to reports in The Advertiser, in February this year the department identified that in the past three school years there were 4,945 chronic truancy referrals, almost 5,000 chronic truancy referrals. Talking about a noticeable percentage of the school population in South Australia, these are children who are not just losing out educationally. There are also potentially very serious issues going on that need to be addressed. An expiation notice is not going to address those.

We have an extraordinary backlog in the fines payment unit already, and I am not sure it is going to get any money for the state. I cannot imagine for a second that is its purpose. I think the expiation notice is a lazy approach to truancy. What we need is more attendance officers working with the model in the act—which is actually quite a positive thing—more attendance officers working through these family conferences, addressing the needs of those families and having a zero tolerance attitude to this but one that also acknowledges there are issues in those families that we can address if only we give them the time.

Before I get onto clauses 77 to 81, which deal with suspensions, exclusions and expulsions, I will just say that this should not be a surprise. We announced that we were opposed to expiation notices for truancy offences over a year ago when we announced our truancy policy, yet they are still here in the legislation. Going back to one more thing on truancy that I think needs to be noted, for some time there was a discussion about this provision, where somebody might be prosecuted for a truancy-related offence, that the defence clause in the act was too loose and allowing parents who did not want to engage to get away with not engaging just by saying that they had given it a crack but the kid would not listen. It was suggested that there were no truancy prosecutions worth pursuing because that defence was too easy.

When the minister, after significant public provocation, I might say—from myself encouraging people to do so, as well as others over a period of time—took to suggesting prosecutions to the DPP, it is notable that those prosecutions succeeded, despite the defence clause in the act at the moment. In one of those cases, I believe the parent in question might have been employing their son as a 14-year-old apprentice, which is clearly too young, and the defence might have been difficult. Clearly, the prosecution was attainable under the old act; it is just that the government did not want to do it, did not want to have a crack. However, clause 69(4) is a slight amendment to the current rules, and at the moment we are minded to support the suggestion going forward.

In relation to suspensions, exclusions and expulsions, again this is an important issue that needs serious work to be put into it. Close to 1,000 public school students were suspended multiple times in a single term, and we are talking about term 2 last year. There were 3,773 students suspended in term 2 last year, 925 (around a quarter) were barred from school at least twice for reasons ranging from violent attacks to not paying attention in class. I quote from a story from 28  May this year in The Advertiser by Tim Williams, who I think is a very fair and erudite education reporter. He is clearly very passionate about the best interests of our children, as demonstrated by his passion for these areas over an extended period of time.

We will get to violence in a moment because there are some issues related to that that are worth touching on. These suspensions need to be taken seriously, and principals need to have supports in place. It is worth noting that I received this last week. We have these Better Behaviour Centres where students might be excluded from a school, but they have to go somewhere because we need to educate them. We do not want it just to be a case where a student seeks exclusion from school because they want to stay at home. Consequently, we have these Better Behaviour Centres.

For the record, we have been asking for some time, and we have received now, an identification of how much capacity we currently have in Better Behaviour Centres. Across the whole system there is a capacity for 229 students, and on 30 June this year there were 192 students in those places. Port Lincoln High School, with a capacity of 15, had 17 students in the centre on that day. In all the other centres, there were between two and eight spaces available.

It is very important that the principals who think that suspension or exclusion is the appropriate course of action not be turned away from that idea by the idea that there is insufficient room in the Better Behaviour Centres. We know that the room at these centres fluctuates significantly. A student might be there for only a week if it is a week's exclusion, or they might be there for two terms. That fluctuates, and we need to keep an eye on this area to make sure there is sufficient capacity. I am pleased that on 30 June, at least, it appears that there was sufficient capacity on that day. This section largely replicates the current provision in the act and the regulations in practice, as far as we can tell. While we remain open, as always, to amendments, we do not propose any at this stage.

There is an area here in relation to intercultural and religious instruction. This is a substantial expansion on the current act, and it is an area that has caused a little bit of consternation in the community in recent times—not necessarily this act itself. Although, as I will explain, it connects to some other issues that have been causing some concern in the community. Section 102 of the current act deals with this matter quite briefly:

(1) Regular provision shall be made for religious education at a Government school, under such conditions as may be prescribed, at times during which the school is open for instruction.

(2) The regulations shall include provision for permission to be granted for exemption from religious education on conscientious grounds.

The regulations ensure that if a student is conscientiously not attending, then there will be other things for them to do.

The new section, clause 82, is quite a significant enlargement of that section. I suppose the question that I would put to the minister to consider is: why? As shadow education minister over the last year and a half, I have had a couple of constituents from around South Australia express concern that there was an example of a specific seminar that their child should have been excluded from but they were not. Of course, if the current act had been applied as it is supposed to be, then they would not have had any troubles. The point is that I think I have had one constituent raise with me the issue of there being religious instruction in schools.

I think it is very useful for children to understand their culture and where our community comes from. I also think that there are school communities in the public system that have significant proportions of families who like to see this in their schools. It is important for schools to have a fair amount of say in what happens at their schools and, ultimately, the decision must be with the parents. No child should be forced into a situation where they are being proselytised to, and certainly not against the will of their parents. That is to be clear.

What I would ask is: what is the issue that has so driven the government to think that there is a harm that needs to be addressed by having this much broader section in the new act? I have not seen it. I have not been presented with that scope of evidence. There are some people who absolutely do not see any place for religion in our society, let alone in our schools, and that is fine. You can argue that point of view, but I do not think that is the point of view that the government wants to argue. We have spent the last three months with the minister protesting until she is hoarse in the throat, and that is not meant derogatively at all.

She would say herself that she has spent more time than she would have liked arguing that there are going to be Christmas carols, but there is a reason why people are concerned that the Christmas carols might be removed; actually, there are several reasons. Let me start with the minister's own words in describing what happened. At the end of the Christmas carol discussion, around the time Media Watch was being critical of people for putting this forward, minister Close was on the Ali Clarke show on ABC radio. Ms Clarke said:

I just want to quickly question you as we change tack a little bit about a three line, four line, press release you put out yesterday about 'Christmas carols will not be banned in South Australian schools.' Why did you…feel you needed to do that?

I will quote the minister. She said:

Well we had a draft policy that was being consulted on, I hadn't seen it before it went out, and it was written in a slightly ambiguous way. The author absolutely intended to say that we wouldn't be in any way seeking to control Christmas carols. But the Liberal Opposition decided that this is something that could be quite entertaining in the media, and it's been massively successful for them, on that perspective, because they managed to set a hare running, suggesting that we were going to ban Christmas carols which is completely ludicrous. I would never do that, and the Department would never do that and no school would do that…

That is just not the case, frankly, but we will move on. The minister went on to say:

Principals are very sensible people and they wouldn't stand any such nonsense like that. So we—

Then David Bevan, who I understand is listening to the broadcast constantly, interrupted, 'Well, where do they get—' and then minister Close said, 'So we just need—' and then it is unclear. Then Bevan said, 'What was it in the bureaucracy? What was the email that gave them any foothold on this?' Minister Close said:

It was a draft policy that was being consulted on, on how we manage the fact that our schools are secular. So we don't have religion as a doctrinal lesson in our schools in the way that you might experience in, say, a Lutheran school or a Catholic school. And all it's noting was that we don't regulate Christmas carols, so I think that they were trying to be helpful, I think they were trying to say 'this has nothing to do with Christmas carols'.

This is the really important part that I think gives a sign that the minister was not being entirely straightforward in her press release the day before, and we will get to that. The minister went on to say:

But they didn't write it spectacularly clearly, and when I saw it I said, 'well we won't be going out with a policy that looks anything like this'.

On 31 August, the Minister for Education said, in relation to the policy in relation to Christmas carols:

…when I saw it I said, 'well we won't be going out with a policy that looks anything like this'.

I note that, when this became an issue in the public media, the minister was falling over herself, and getting the department to fall over themselves, to say that this was all a pack of nonsense, that the policy itself was not suggesting any such thing and the policy was fine.

Yet the minister, on 31 August, when her repeated claims had not convinced anyone that the policy was okay, steps back and says that she saw the policy and said, 'We won't be going out with a policy that looks anything like this.' The Minister for Education went on to say that 'they certainly had no intention and to suggest otherwise really is a bit of mischief-making. Of course, everyone loves the idea that someone is trying to ban something that people love'.

Members would be familiar with the back and forth that was happening for quite some time. I put on the public record that I was concerned that the draft policy had a clause in it that was unsatisfactory. In fact, I will quote from what I said:

The State Liberals have called on the Weatherill Labor Government to abandon a draft schools procedure that could see Christmas carols banned in SA public schools. 'Christmas carols have long been sung at many schools across South Australia as part of their end of year celebrations,' [I said]...'It's not for every school, but school communities are the ones who should determine whether or not they take place—not the government.'

The draft 'Religious Procedures in Government Schools' document, currently being considered by the Government, clarifies a range of procedures relating to pastors in schools, religious education and religious seminars. For the first time the revised document refers to Christmas carols, saying—

I am quoting from the document that the government put out, wrote and distributed—

'DECD schools are secular and therefore Christmas carols, singing and performing, for example, is not regulated by the department. There are clear policy requirements to ensure that schools are not involved in promoting a commitment to a specific set of religious beliefs.'

I went on to say:

This is a classic case of government overreach—creating rules to restrict behaviour where there's just no need for the government to be involved. If schools want to have carols we should be clear in the guidelines that they should be allowed to have carols. Or else don't put in a reference to carols in the guidelines at all! Proceeding with this change would be the act of a politically-correct Christmas grinch.

Which I thought was a fairly fair way of putting the argument. Do you know why I think it was fairly fair? Because the minister some months later said that when she saw the policy I referred to she said to herself, 'We won't be going out with a policy that looks anything like this.'

If that was what the minister said at the time when she saw the policy, rather than saying, 'We are not going out with this policy because clearly it is wrong,' why instead did she say, 'It is just in the delusional minds of the shadow minister and the Liberal Party that anyone could possibly read into that'? That is what she said, and then six weeks later, when she had not convinced anybody, she said, 'No, I always thought the policy was rubbish.'

The day before she said that she put out a press release saying, 'There has never been a ban on Christmas carols in South Australian schools. There never will be a ban on Christmas carols in South Australian schools. This idea only exists in the fevered imaginations of the Liberal Party.' It is quite pithy. It was very well received and it got tweeted very well. The echo chamber loved it.

Again, there is a problem though. She said on 30 August that the idea only exists in the fevered imaginations of the Liberal Party. I wonder if anyone else's fevered imagination had the idea that her policy could have banned Christmas carols, because I know somebody else who thought that that policy could have had some severe problems. I know because the Minister for Education herself said so the following day. When she saw that policy she said, 'No, we won't be going out with a policy that looks anything like that. That's confusing. That's going to be a problem for people.'

The minister is better than making derogatory remarks suggesting mental health problems, fevered imaginations and delusional capacity. The minister is better than that. I find it hard to believe that she herself would write anything like those suggestions. I would like to think that it is not in her nature. I think she allowed her name to be put on a press release that was written by some smart alec in the minister's office or the media unit who said, 'Put this out. It will put the story to bed.' It has not put the story to bed. It got another couple of weeks' run to the point where the minister was so infuriated by it all that she had to put into her second reading speech that this bill was not going to ban Christmas carols.

It does not do anything to protect Christmas carols, by the way. We know that this minister loves Christmas carols. We know that her family loves going to them and she has said that on the public record so many times that I absolutely believe her, but what if one of the other fine members of parliament we see opposite gets the opportunity to be Minister for Education at some stage in the next six months.

Members interjecting:

Mr GARDNER: I have confidence—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I beg your pardon. It is unparliamentary.

Mr GARDNER: I have confidence.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am not going to have this. I am not going to have this chitchat back across the table, particularly when we are on air. Back to the topic, please. You are not in your place, member for Newland, and you are only just in your new place, minister, so just behave.

Mr GARDNER: I have confidence that the member for Newland himself—and I do not refer to his interjection, obviously—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just as well.

Mr GARDNER: I am instead referring to my source material when I was commenting that the minister is there by dint of the appointment of the Premier's goodwill. This government still has another five and a half months to run, so any of these fine people could be the minister for education, at least for a couple of months. There is Christmas between now and the election, and if the Minister for Education is not holding that portfolio come December I fear what might happen if one of these others gets there.

We have seen what Labor ministers for education do interstate. We have seen what Labor ministers for education in Victoria and Queensland do. There is a reason that people were concerned when a Labor government's education department was putting out policies which, for the first time, identify Christmas carols in a document containing things that schools cannot do. Of course people were going to be concerned.

All we asked for on that first day was for the minister to come out and clearly rule it out and say, 'We're not going ahead with this policy,' which she has now said she thought as soon as she read the policy. But, she spent two months saying it was just fevered imagination that made people concerned about Christmas carols. She could have dealt with this on day one; instead it was drawn out for two months. If she is not there as the minister, the current policy as suggested—this bill does nothing to protect Christmas carols in public schools.

That is fine, because one good thing has happened. At the briefing last week, the minister confirmed what she said on the radio: this policy is not going ahead. That is a win for public schools. I am not sure that if attention had not been drawn to this issue this policy would not go ahead, because the minister had not even read it until attention was drawn to it. The minister might say she was protecting Christmas carols, but what was she doing to protect Christmas carols?

The minister let this document go out for public consultation, which clearly put them in an ambiguous position, which she says is so suboptimal that she does not want it to go forward so she cancelled the revised document. I asked her last week, 'What has happened to the original document?' because this was a revised redraft of an existing provision about religions in public schools. There is an education department policy outlining what happens with religion in public schools that this draft was supposed to replace. The minister said—and she can correct me if I am wrong—'Well, that has been suspended.'

There is currently no document identifying the rules around the utilisation of religion in public schools. Currently, the only provisions are in the act, and I read those out earlier. Those provisions allow for conscientious objections, and do you know what? The sky has not fallen down. Things are going fine. Schools are operating, led by their principals and governing councils, in a perfectly satisfactory way.

This brings me back to clause 82 in this bill. Why do we need these changes? Why do we need a reversal of the onus from conscientious objection to a parent having to identify their child is allowed to be in school and part of the religious activity out of school? Why does this need to be an opt-in that might alienate groups of children who feel that way inclined?

There are strict provisions in the department practice that if a child is conscientiously objecting and they do not want to be a part of the activities, then they must be given meaningful, useful things to do. If those are not in place—there are a couple of examples where parents have suggested that the school did not operate in the right way in relation to their child—then we need to address that. But I do not see any benefit in upending the process the way it is at the moment. While most of the new clause 82 is fairly benign, and even positive, we have some questions about it. At clause 82(2), we indicate that we have a suggestion that the status quo might be a better way forward.

I will move on from Christmas carols, as I am sure the minister wishes to do, and I am happy to do as well. I am satisfied that for as long as she is there, we are fine on Christmas carols. For as long as there is no compulsion that people have to attend Christmas carols, then I think we are fine. There are no protections, but I hope we will be fine. We will have a look at it between the houses if there is more.

I will move on to student exchange programs at clauses 84 to 89. I note that quite a lot of work is being done in this area in the department, and I commend it and the people doing it. They have had some improvements in recent years and they are commendable. As of 2015, there are 1,177 Visa 571 students commencing the SACE; in 2016, 1,326. Schools get a benefit from these students.

There is a challenge when it comes to enrolments, and obviously some of the schools that are popular for these students are also popular for local students, so that is a tension we must manage. By and large, these students coming in provide both an intercultural and financial advantage to the schools and students who go there. They pay money to the South Australian government (the department) but most of that benefits the school and then there are some that administers the unit. These clauses 84 to 89 seem laudable.

I have a bit of an interest. We receive these details about the numbers of students commencing the SACE with a Visa 571 as a result of an estimates question. I am particularly interested also, as I will identify to the minister and she can answer it in her second reading or elsewhere, part of that question was also not only in relation to those overseas students in South Australia but also in relation to students in overseas schools who are undertaking the SACE. We would like an answer to that at some point. How many of those students are there? How many of them finish it?

Safety at schools, there are a number of new offence provisions in relation to this, and there are good reasons why we need to deal with this matter. In recent months we had numbers released. I have a feeling that Tim Williams again from The Advertiser might have been the one to bring this news, but I am reading a transcript from the Leon Byner show, which was also reporting on it. I know that Leon Byner has a particular interest in this area because he is very concerned about student safety, anti-bullying and student wellbeing.

We have seen an increase in violent incidents at school from 1,604 two years ago to 2,135 last year. That is an extraordinary figure. Weapons were involved in 295 of those incidents, up from 265. This is at schools in South Australia. This is not the state that we want to be. Incidents involving injury or potentially illness increased from 762 to 1,040. The minister suggested that it might be because there were some gastro outbreaks involved, but if that was all 300 of them, then we clearly have some gastro problems.

I identified that at the John Pirie Secondary School a former staff member of mine, Priya Pavri, is a proud graduate of that school and is now building hospitals in Iraq with Adventist Care. Priya has been encouraging me to go to John Pirie Secondary School for some time and meet the staff and some of the families there. I had a terrific time with Kendall Jackson, the Liberal candidate for Frome. We were really encouraged by some of the stories we heard.

Over the last five years, John Pirie has seen a reduction in violence quite substantially. I do not know the period from when and to when, but certainly the figure quoted by the principal to me and then again on the television that night was a 60 per cent reduction in violent incidents and fights over a five-year period, improved academic achievement and improved wellbeing around the school. People are happier, people are more confident.

One of the things that strikes me is I asked, 'What was the thing that you did?' He said, 'We took a zero tolerance approach. If there was a violent incident at the school, we called the police. We made sure that these students appreciated that there were consequences to their actions. The idea that this was a radical proposition that would see such incredible improvement makes me very concerned that this is not a universal proposition throughout the education department. We need to ensure that the standard procedure is that if there is an incident that would involve calling police outside of a school, then if the incident is inside a school, you call the police. It should be a no-brainer. I hope that examples such as John Pirie encourage others to do the same.

This is where leadership is important. I have heard the Minister for Education asked a couple of times on Leon Byner's show—and as I said, this is an issue that he is very concerned about—this question, 'Should police be doing this?' She said if a violent incident is a student throwing their schoolbooks across the classroom, then of course not. Nobody is suggesting that, but if there is an assault at a school should you call the police? The answer is yes, and that is a clear and important message.

The principal, the school leaders and the staff need to know that the department is going to have their back. If a parent comes in and says, 'Why did you call the police?' the staff member should have every confidence in saying, 'Because that's what we are supposed to do. That's the only possible response in this circumstance.' We need to make sure that the department has the principals' backs in this area.

These legislative provisions do provide some useful steps forward in dealing with violent incidents. I am not sure whether they are sufficient; we are happy to look at others. It is not just the legislation. It is not just the creation of new offences. We are talking about barring orders and increases in penalties for conducting yourself improperly against teachers. We are also looking for leadership and clarity in the way that principals and staff respond to violent incidents, and we would like to see more of that.

The clauses from 90 to 95 deal with barring orders, trespass and strengthen offensive behaviour powers. There were some offence provisions in the previous act, particularly at section 104, and the barring and trespass provisions are currently dealt with in regulations. However, from our first look at it, by and large at this stage we are inclined towards supporting these provisions being put into the act.

The bill also broadens the barring orders opportunity to non-government schools, which I am told the non-government school sector is supportive of. Obviously the application of that needs to be worked through. The barring orders, through the regulations method, had to be formally approved by the chief executive. These barring orders can now be made at a local level and the chief executive's power is that he can change it after the fact.

These orders also now apply to preschools. This is particularly important in cases where the preschool is co-located with the school. In those locations you might have somebody who is barred from a school but not the preschool. That person is then able to be on the preschool site. Potentially, whatever caused them to get the barring order would still be a problem for the people at the school that is nearby. We will talk more about those provisions in the committee stage, potentially.

Clauses 97 to 123 deal with teachers. There is no groundbreaking progress in relation to improving easy-to-manage industrial relations outcomes at schools or local autonomy. There are a number of places where the government argues that the bill will modernise the act through contemporary language or consistency, potentially with the Public Sector Act. We see no reason to object to those, by and large.

I identified before the new provision that explicitly allows allied health workers to be employed under the act. The minister gave me a brief explanation of this when we discussed this matter previously. I encourage her to provide some more detail as to why this new clause is necessary in her second reading response, otherwise we can do it in the committee stage. It has certainly caused some anxiety. These employees are currently employed by the education department under the provisions of the Public Sector Act. I do not see that there is any immediate harm caused by this, but we remain open to discussing it further.

In relation to appointments to promotional level positions, I did note one issue. I think this is familiar with the current situation where the Australian Education Union automatically gets a nominee to a committee looking at an application for a position in the teaching service classified at promotional level. That is the same as the current provisions. Previously, we have argued against that provision, as we did the automatic right of that group to be represented in relation to review committees.

On the face of it, it strikes me that an elected staff representative is absolutely appropriate, whether they are members of an organisation or not. I think we need to think seriously about whether that actually provides any benefit to the school and to the teachers. I suspect that it certainly does not to those who are not members of the organisation but who might otherwise wish to serve in that way. We are happy to have a chat about what effect that might have in practice.

That brings me to other miscellaneous matters. Clause129 and those to the end deal with a range of things, and I will touch on one particular issue to do with community use of school facilities. The Debelle report recommended:

…that the Department impose a contractual obligation upon third parties using a site of the Department to give notice to parents of children using services provided by the third party should a member or employee or volunteer of that organisation be arrested or charged with a sexual offence…

The DECD response is:

The clause has been introduced into a range of DECD agreements with third parties using DECD sites and this work will continue as the applicability of the clause is considered for all existing agreements.

The template to be used by schools in establishing shared use agreements has been re-written to include the clause and a guide sheet has been developed to support both schools and community groups understand what the clause requires.

Given the importance that Debelle placed on it, I would not mind establishing either now or in the committee stage, so that the minister has a couple of weeks to get back to me on that one, whether that initial response is still the case.

I note a question that I asked, and it is important for the minister in the briefing, that I wanted to make sure that in the cases of community use of school facilities that the school's governing council has a position where they are confidently able to have their say on whether that takes place, and the minister responded to me yesterday:

Under the Bill, and consistent with the current Education Act, the Minister may permit the use of school facilities for community purposes. Instructions have been issued to schools outlining the conditions under which this can occur.

She also states:

In response to your query as to whether the permission of the Governing Council is required for such use, I note the instructions state:

Principals/directors may grant the use of School facilities to School bodies. Principals/directors may also, after consultation with—

and this bit is underlined, so it means it is really important.

and the agreement of the site governing body—

and it was really important—

grant the use of School facilities to organisations not connected with the School under such conditions as the Minister may determine.

I felt that was good, and we support it.

I am checking that I have covered all the aspects of the bill because I would hate to have missed something. Broadly, I think that the bill has a number of benefits and that there are some opportunities to improve it further. The opposition is going to be very resolute on some of the areas where it needs to be improved because, if the bill proceeds in its current form, there are a number of aspects, particularly in relation to school governance, where we feel that it is a deterioration on the current act. It would make the situation worse than the current act, but the benefits would be outweighed by the negatives.

The opposition is going to be resolute in pushing for amendments on a number of these things. That said, if those amendments are passed, then we think this bill will benefit the people of South Australia, particularly its children. On that basis, we will support the bill at the second reading. We will discuss amendments. We will probably discuss amendments between houses and then we will see where we land.

Ms COOK (Fisher) (17:44): I rise to make a slightly shorter contribution than the very long, very comprehensive contribution from the member for Morialta, but I have enjoyed listening to his input regarding this bill. The Education and Children's Services Bill 2017 is the most substantial legislative reform to education and development of children in South Australia in decades. I congratulate the Minister for Education on her work and the department's work with this reform and the ongoing commitment to equitable, high-quality education for all children in this state. I would also like to add to that statement that, as I travel around schools in my electorate and local area, the resounding theme of the feedback that I get regarding the minister and her work is one of gratitude and support, so I would like to pass that on to the minister and have it tabled formally.

The bill recognises the importance of education in the development of our children and how it creates a foundation for future prosperity and opportunity not just for the child but for our statewide community. Although we cannot forecast the future, one thing is perfectly clear: our future prosperity will rely on education. We see the importance of education today in keeping a job or transitioning to a new one when industry opportunity changes, and this is only going to increase. Of course, in particular now, the jobs of the future we do not even know about.

Jobs and opportunities of the future will demand that individuals bring value. The opportunities will be in areas that cannot be replicated by machines, in areas of creativity, problem-solving, relationship building and understanding, which only people can offer. If we understand this, then of course it follows that we must ensure that our children are getting the best education possible. Every child must have access to high-quality schools so that they can find their path to a career and get the support they need to follow it. We must provide the high-quality teaching and modern facilities that are needed. We have seen this being provided over recent years with the rollout of the STEM investments in our schools.

I am very proud to be part of a government that understands this and does not shy away from its responsibilities. We have stuck to our side of the Gonski agreement that was signed with the federal government, and earlier this year we announced $67.5 million in funding for literacy and numeracy support for our students who need it the most. However, for children to benefit from this investment, they need to be attending school. While the vast majority of students do, of course—and they enjoy attending school, and we are seeing a rise in the number of students completing their SACE—it is important that every single child gets an education.

Regularly missing whole days or weeks of classes will put a child behind. It will put that child behind in the part of their life where learning is crucial, and often these are the children who need education the most, children who have had a bad start to life. It will put them behind their classmates, who are building skills in reading, maths, science and languages, and the research backs this up. Even small amounts of unauthorised absence are associated with falls in educational achievement.

In recognising the vital importance of education for every child, this government has put forward this bill to the parliament. It offers the modern legislation needed to support a modern education. Central to it is ensuring action can be taken if a child is not attending school. The government, the education department and our schools will support families to make sure their children attend school regularly.

We are continually working to make schools more inclusive of their communities and more engaging for students. We recognise that sometimes families encounter difficulties. We will work with families to address issues that may prevent a child from attending school. Our school environment and these supports work in the vast majority of instances. Schools work incredibly hard to avoid any punitive measures; however, we need to be able to take action if the measures do not work.

That is why this bill includes new provisions to address non-attendance at school, including new provisions for family conferencing to address persistent non-attendance at school; improved provisions for the prosecution of parents who do not take reasonable steps to ensure their children or child attends school, and a significant increase in the maximum penalty for this offence; a requirement that parents of a child provide a valid reason for the child's failure to attend school within five business days; and improved provisions for obtaining information relevant to the persistent non-attendance of a child at school.

The bill also updates provisions for enrolment of children in schools and includes a substantial increase in the penalty for a parent's failure to enrol a child of compulsory school age or compulsory education age in school. These are steps we do not expect will have to be taken very often at all; however, the potential cost for a child missing school is too high not to have these provisions available. Education is key to the future not only of this state but also of every single child who lives here.

Tomorrow, I will be speaking on the motion on International Teachers' Day, and I look forward to congratulating teachers and educators in my electorate as well as those statewide. For now, I will conclude by saying that as a government we are committed to ensuring that each child gets the support they need to prosper. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (17:50): I rise to make a brief contribution because this has been well covered by the Liberal member for Morialta. In my time as a teacher I have been very fortunate to teach in different parts of South Australia—initially in Port Augusta for five years and then in Mount Gambier for a considerably longer period, 14 or 15 years I think—and to have been involved in the establishment of flexible learning centres, as well as working with a range of practitioners.

One of those was Garry Costello, who took Mount Gambier High School from a significantly underperforming school to one of the best in the state. Unfortunately, Garry's wife, Liz, passed away last week. The funeral was on Monday, and it was pleasing to see that it was full of love but also full of humour, and a large contingent from Mount Gambier attended. I was privileged because I spent a number of years working with Garry both at Mount Gambier High School and in the regional office, and what he brought to education were high expectations. He also brought care for every student in his school, regardless of their background.

I could go on for quite a while about expectations. If you actually set high expectations, it is amazing how often students will achieve those expectations and, in many cases, exceed them. It disappoints me when expectations are set too low in the misguided belief that that is an assistance to students when, in fact, it is the complete opposite. Teachers and schools are doing those students a disservice.

In terms of recognising a wide range of abilities, I think our schools do an amazing job. Within the department, I have undertaken a number of different roles—from attendance officer right the way through to apprenticeship broker, and of course teacher, coordinator, counsellor, etc.—but it is my time as an attendance officer that probably brings home to me the importance of attendance and what schools can do and what they do do to support young people who may come from backgrounds that are perhaps different to those many in this place have come from.

What I found a little bit disappointing was how government departments operated in silos. We had this family where I would go and pick up the kids and take them to school. They were primary school students. I had 120 on my attendance list and, when you think about it, one family can take up a number of hours every day. The school in question was McDonald Park Primary School (I still communicate with the front office staff there) and we would get these young children to school, the school would provide fresh clothes and a shower, wash their hair, give them breakfast and get them into school.

It probably struck me the hardest when, as we were getting on top of this situation, I was working with a single dad who had the power cut off, water cut off and pretty much everything cut off in the house. I think there were at least 10 cats and four or five dogs in the house as well. As soon as we started getting a grip and getting on top of some of those issues in collaboration with Families SA, the family up and moved interstate, and it is very hard to track where they are and what progress those children are making in their schooling.

Bringing it back to the bill, I think there is a lot of very good stuff in the bill and I will be listening with interest throughout this debate. One area of concern I will be raising, and I am flagging it early, is on page 77 concerning the termination of staff. The chief executive is able to terminate employment under subclause (1) by giving 12 weeks' notice in writing prior to the date of termination.

Of course, we understand the reasons why they can terminate: misconduct, unsatisfactory performance, the officer's lack of an essential qualification or if the teacher is physically or mentally incapable of performing their duties, but the one that is of most interest to me, and certainly to my previous colleagues, is if the teacher is excess to the requirements of the teaching service. In metropolitan areas that may be easier to address, but in some regional areas it may not be. I would like some further information and clarification around that area of termination of employment. With those brief remarks, I will conclude my statement, and I look forward to the passage of the Education and Children's Services Bill 2017.