Parliamentary Committees

SELECT COMMITTEE ON MATTERS RELATING TO THE INDEPENDENT EDUCATION INQUIRY

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:56): I move:

That a message be sent to the House of Assembly requesting that the Premier (Hon. J. Weatherill), the Minister for Education and Child Development (Hon. J.M. Rankine) and the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills (Hon. G. Portolesi), members of the House of Assembly, be permitted to attend and give evidence before the Legislative Council Select Committee on Matters Relating to the Independent Education Inquiry, 2012-2013.

I will be brief in my remarks because, again, I know there are a number of other members who want to speak. As the chair of the committee, I am the person who moves the motion. This motion gives the opportunity for the Premier, when he was the minister for education, the current Minister for Education, and another former minister for education to come before the parliament to put their case on serious issues regarding the sexual abuse of children in the education system; issues that are concerning the South Australian community generally.

I note that the government has said that this committee is a circus, a witch-hunt and all about politics to lead into the next state election. However, I say to the members of the government who have said that, the Premier and the ministers whom we are calling to give evidence, that that is not true. In fact, if you look at all the debate, even before the contributions from members of the Legislative Council other than government members—that is, all of the crossbench and opposition—the setting up of this committee was unanimously supported.

The reason is that we do have genuine concern about whether we have best practice in this state regarding the protection of our children and other relevant matters including, not the least of which, the very detailed way in which subsequent ministers of that portfolio, their officers and people within the department went about deleting information both electronically and in written form so that it was difficult for even the Hon. Justice Debelle in his inquiry—which was a very limited inquiry on one case only—to assess all the evidence on whether or not those relevant ministers were actually advised by their advisers on these matters, because we do know clearly that the department did advise the ministers' officers; and there are other issues as well.

I will just finish with this. If I were a minister today, I would relish the opportunity to come before the committee so that I could put my case forward so that the public could clearly see what my case was. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Premier and the relevant ministers do not want to do the same. I can say that it is not unprecedented and, in fact, during the State Bank debacle, the former premier (Hon. John Bannon) appeared before a committee and gave evidence, and I understand other ministers in this parliament have appeared before a range of committees and given evidence.

In the New South Wales parliament, the current Premier (Hon. Barry O'Farrell) has been to committees on several occasions, I am advised, and said that he enjoys the opportunity because he can, under privilege, put everything forward with respect to his knowledge about a set of circumstances and give the democratic parliament the opportunity to question him as premier. I also know that other Liberal government ministers in New South Wales have attended select committees. I acknowledge that, at law, people who cannot be summonsed to appear before the committee are the Premier, ministers and MPs. Outside the parliament, we can subpoena witnesses.

Clearly, in the community, there is real concern about a range of issues around the protection of our children, and it is fair to say that the media believe there should be transparency when it comes to evidence and issues regarding the protection of our children, and most members of the community I talk to across the state cannot understand why a minister would not want to appear before the committee. With those words, I commend the motion to the house. I look forward to contributions from other members, and I appeal to the relevant ministers to agree to attend the committee if, indeed, the Legislative Council passes this motion today.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (17:02): There has been genuine and reasonable debate about whether this select committee is a political stunt primarily motivated by political reasons. I note that this chamber was only given notice of this motion yesterday, and in the most unusual circumstances, and we are being asked to vote on it today. This motion to call ministers before this select committee puts that question completely and utterly to bed. It confirms that this is about politics and not about the issues.

We have had a royal commission into these issues. Royal commissions are established for very good purposes—to answer important and often controversial questions and to have such questions settled by an eminent, qualified, independent person, and that is exactly what happened here. Justice Debelle undertook that royal commission. As I have previously said, he took more than 8,000 pages of evidence just from the education department alone. Ninety-four witnesses appeared before the inquiry, and that does not include the families of victims whose identities must remain confidential. The final report ran to 328 pages and cost $1 million. Ministers appeared as witnesses before this royal commission.

Still, weeks after this select committee was established, we have not heard where the Debelle inquiry went wrong. We have not heard what powers the Debelle inquiry should have been given, but lacked, to properly perform its duties and we have not been told any of the defects in the methodology of the investigation or the defects in the reasoning of the Debelle report. All we have heard so far are suggestions made under parliamentary privilege that some members of the select committee might disagree with some of the conclusions reached by the royal commission.

This is a dangerous and reckless exercise, seeking to undermine this royal commission. If individual members of the Legislative Council disagree in the future with a particular decision of a particular court or a particular finding of a royal commission, are we going to be prepared to agitate and politicise it by way of a select committee?

There have been some suggestions that the committee is all about the broad issue of child protection. The terms of reference setting up this select committee clearly show that to be a blatant lie. The terms of reference of the committee are:

(a) Any matter arising from the 2012-2013 Independent Education Inquiry also known as the Debelle inquiry;

(b) Any matter raised by the Debelle inquiry related to incident and records management, including compliance with legislation and policy;

(c) Progress on the implementation of the recommendations of the Debelle inquiry; and

(d) Any other relevant matter.

This is purely and politically about the Debelle inquiry. The terms of reference make that absolutely clear. Every section of the terms of reference refers to the Debelle royal commission or, as the terms of reference state, the Debelle inquiry. Not once is the term 'child protection' used in the terms of reference.

I understand that there are some members of the Liberal Party who are not happy about the wording of the terms of reference. They would have much preferred the terms of reference to actually refer to child protection rather than—

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —refer solely and narrowly to the Debelle inquiry—

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Maher, this is purely a procedural motion; we are not debating setting up the committee, nor are we debating the terms of reference, so can we stick to the actual motion, which is an invitation to the ministers in the other place to give evidence to the committee. That will apply to all other speakers.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Thank you, sir. This committee is calling for ministers as witnesses. In doing so, this select committee runs a very real risk of inadvertently or deliberately not exercising the same sensitivities and publicising information that ought not be made public. The Debelle royal commission did not make evidence given by witnesses public. It has also omitted certain paragraphs from the report until a certain event has occurred, and that was done for very good reason.

I fear that in calling the same witnesses—ministers who have already given evidence to the Debelle royal commission—we might actually be going against some of the very good reasons that things were not published in the royal commission. I urge members not to support what is a blatant political stunt.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (17:07): I rise to support the motion and I intend, as has the Hon. Mr Maher, to address the terms of the motion that is before us. Why should members of this chamber support the motion to have the three ministers named appear before the committee? The simple answer to that is that there are many unanswered questions that can only be answered by these three ministers appearing and giving evidence to the committee. That is the reason the Legislative Council should support the motion that is before us.

As the mover of the motion (Hon. Mr Brokenshire) indicated, it is not unprecedented for one chamber to issue an invitation or to have ministers of another chamber appear before a select committee to give evidence. As I indicated in previous debates, we have had examples of the former premier Lynn Arnold, who has given evidence to a committee, the former minister for transport Mr Roy Abbott has given evidence to the South Australian Timber Corporation select committee, and I understand there are probably other ministers who have given evidence before.

This notion that in some way it would be unprecedented is not correct. Similarly, although it is not covered in this motion, and I will not traverse the detail, any claim that it is unprecedented for staffers to appear before a committee is not accurate either. Staffers such as Mr Kevin Foley, Mr George Karsis and others have appeared before committees in the past, but that is a matter for another day and for the committee to consider separately.

I want to address within the terms of this motion the reasons why the three ministers are being invited to come to the select committee to provide evidence on this particular issue. A series of questions was raised in the House of Assembly yesterday and today in relation to issues that can be answered only by the Premier because the questions were put to the Premier in the House of Assembly. These relate to the appropriateness or otherwise of ministerial staff in the Premier's office contacting the chief executive of the education department and/or his legal advisers, which is crown law, in the education department.

I guess the first question would be: why would it be the Premier's ministerial staff who might be undertaking that task, rather than the education minister's staff? Only the Premier is in a position to answer that question. The Premier has taken the view that it is natural or routine for his ministerial staff to be engaged in that way, that is, contacting the CEO or his legal advisers. In essence, what the Premier is saying is that it is natural or routine for any one of his ministerial staff—and of course that does include the chief of staff, Mr Blewett—to be able to ring the chief executive of the department and/or crown law, who are his legal advisers.

Crown law, bear in mind, is providing advice to the chief executive about the disciplinary issues that emanate as a result of the Debelle inquiry. The argument from the Premier appears to be that it is natural for any of his staff to be able to contact the chief executive or his legal advisers in crown law about whether disciplinary action should be taken and in fact whether or not penalties might or should (I think that was the question today) be applied to individual public servants named in the Debelle inquiry.

It is only the Premier who is going to be able to answer those questions. He has indicated this view—that he thinks that is natural, routine or appropriate. He also says that it is okay for any of his staff, including Mr Blewett, to contact, as I said, the chief executive or his legal advisers, crown law, to discuss individual public servants by name or title and the penalties that might or should be applied to them.

The Premier needs to be able to appear before the committee to indicate why he believes that that is natural or routine and whether or not indeed it is appropriate that any member of his staff should be in a position potentially to be speaking to the CEO or his legal advisers—again, and I repeat, given that crown law are the people who are actually determining whether or not disciplinary action should be taken against public servants—and, if so, whether or not there should be penalties.

The second reason the Premier needs to appear before the committee, and why the committee believes he should attend, is the issue of the appropriateness of actions and penalties potentially to be taken against public servants. As you know, Mr President, the Premier has indicated that he did not believe that he needed to or should dismiss his chief of staff or ministerial advisers, in general terms and in essence, who had long periods of exemplary service prior to making a mistake, and therefore prior service should be taken into account.

An obvious question for the Premier at the committee should be: what if public servants are in exactly the same position? That is, if they have had many years of exemplary service and if, for example, they are found to have made a mistake, why should they be treated differently from ministerial staff? Again, the Premier is the only one who can answer that question because this is a judgement call he alone has made in relation to his ministerial staff.

The third general issue is the role of ministers, and I think this relates to all ministers who are being asked to appear before the committee—all of them education ministers, as has been indicated. It talks about, in essence, the role of the minister. This is a more philosophical or general question but, nevertheless, I think an important question, and it is an issue that emanates from the Debelle inquiry. It is the issue of: what is the role of a minister in terms of critical incidents that occur? Just very briefly—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lucas, I think you are straying a little bit on the role of minister and—

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I will try to bring myself back to the strict tenet of the terms of reference.

The PRESIDENT: —I am asking you not to debate or prosecute a case as if you were in the committee. However, I will let you continue and certainly we will be listening.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Thank you, sir. Very quickly, then, in relation to this particular issue—as I said, it is a more philosophical question and it applies to all ministers. In this case we are talking about education ministers, and I stand here as a former minister for education. That is, that once you have been advised of a critical incident whether, as in this case, the rape of a young child, or a bomb incident, a drug overdose of a student or a teacher, a knifing of a student, anything that you can imagine, the argument from the Premier appears to be that if you receive a three-line email form the department which says, 'We are handling the issue appropriately,' that is the end of the responsibility of any minister. That is, your responsibility ends at that point because you have been told the department is handling the issue appropriately.

I speak as a former minister here and that is the sort of evidence I gave to the Debelle inquiry—I do not think that it is an appropriate response from a minister to say that a three-line email indicating that 'We are handling the issue appropriately' is, therefore, the end of the matter. That is, the minister is entitled to say, 'I don't need to do anything more and, even if I had known, I wouldn't do anything more because my staff have been told and I would have been told that that's the end of the matter.'

I will not go into the detail of that particular argument. That is an issue that, hopefully—if the ministers accept the invitation to come before the committee—we can pursue with the individual ministers and ask, 'Okay, how do you justify this as an appropriate or an acceptable role of any minister of the crown in relation to handling any particular critical incident?'

Again, I will not go into the detail—I outlined the case in the original arguments—but clearly there are an answered questions in relation to the missing email, the wiping of computers and range of other related issues where clearly, again, the Premier is the key person in terms of being able to provide, hopefully, some response to the committee in relation to his policy and the government's policy in terms of wiping of computers, and then the missing email.

There is one final issue which has been raised with me which I believe the Premier should respond to. In the 7:30 Report the minister said:

Look, as soon as I became aware that within the education department there were issues that weren't being escalated to the ministerial office which occurred about another matter which occurred some time after this, we put in place protocols to ensure that the minister's office were told about these matters.

Again, I will not go into the detail of that but if the then minister (now Premier) was to come before the committee, that particular issue in terms of what the other issues were, what the ministerial protocols that were instituted were, why they worked or did not work in the minister's opinion would be issues appropriately to be canvassed by the committee.

With that, I accept your ruling that this is essentially a procedural matter and, as tempting as it might be to try to prosecute the case, on this particular occasion I will, of course, adhere to your very stringent ruling and urge members in this chamber to support this motion so that the committee can go about its work.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (17:19): I will speak briefly today on behalf of Dignity for Disability to support the motion of the Hon. Robert Brokenshire. I have no doubt that the Premier in another place will howl and carry on, and bluster about this request to appear, claiming that this is nothing but a political witch-hunt being carried out by the Liberal opposition. However, as I believe Matthew Abraham alluded to on radio yesterday morning, the public, journalists, minor political parties and Independent MPs, as well as the rest of the community, are perfectly capable of making up their own minds on this issue, without any lobbying, prompting or cajoling from the Liberal opposition.

Neither myself nor my office have been directly involved in the western suburbs school situation that lead to the Debelle inquiry. I have, however, seen the effect that abuse against children and young people with disabilities in particular can have on the victims, their families, and the surrounding community; it is devastating, to say the least. Our current police and court system is very limited—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Vincent, again I draw your attention to the actual motion: it is a motion inviting the various ministers and the Premier. The debate to set up the committee has been done; the committee has been set up. This is purely a procedural motion, so if you could stick to it.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Very well; I was just about to say I digress. Cycling through ministers for education cannot hide this. It does not make the endless child abuse cases in schools that seem to spew out of the Department for Education and Child Development okay, or better, or less horrific. While I appreciate the Debelle inquiry has made some recommendations, some of which are in the process of being implemented due to its limited terms of reference, Dignity for Disability remains concerned about whether all the issues have been teased out, with so many alleged abuse cases and so many mandatory notifications not followed up.

I was reminded just the other day, in relation to a Christies Beach school bus case, that it was a member of my staff who alerted the then minister for education, the Hon. Jay Weatherill, that a bus driver of an education department-provided bus had been charged with the alleged sexual assault of seven young children. His department did not tell him, we had to; if that does not indicate that this committee inquiry is necessary, I do not know what does.

For these reasons, of course, I support the Hon. Mr Robert Brokenshire's motion. This is not a witch-hunt, as I have said on many occasions; it is about ensuring the Department for Education and Child Development has the right culture, the adequate resources and the appropriately trained staff to provide a safe environment in education facilities throughout South Australia. We can have all the standards, testing and NAPLAN we like in our modern educational environment—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Vincent, please return to the motion.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Yes, sir—but if we do not prevent child abuse, we have failed. For that reason, I support the motion.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:22): I rise briefly to indicate that the Greens support the motion to permit the relevant ministers and the Premier to appear before this inquiry should they so desire. I am relaxed as to whether or not they decide to do so; that is their decision, and certainly that will be something that they will determine.

I also take this opportunity to clarify the record. In speaking to this motion, I referred to the South Australian Association of School Parents as not having received enough time to make a contribution. To clarify, I was referring to a newspaper article in The Australian which described a school parents association. That school parents association is the South Australian Association of State School Organisations.

Motion carried.