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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-03 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

CHILD PROTECTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:19): Finally, this week South Australians heard the words they had been waiting for since this sad saga of sex crimes in schools first emerged. After months of denials, excuses, buck passing, insults and inquiries, what we all knew all along is now confirmed. 'I have to accept the responsibility for what has gone wrong,' said the Premier on Monday. What does that mean? It means precisely what it has always among comrades: all responsibility and no care. What were the consequences for the guilty parties here? Precisely none. We have heard the Premier, we have heard the Minster for Education: no-one, certainly in the minister's office, will be held responsible, and in the Premier's office, nobody will be sacked.

This is what the Premier said, 'I have to take responsibility that this has happened on my watch,' but we all know that it is the children and the parents who take the hit again. While the Premier and his ministers, advisers and bureaucrats hide behind yet another inquiry—the third since the Premier was education minister, and possibly Education Department restructure No. 10—whatever happened to ministerial responsibility?

Back in 1984, prominent South Australian Laborite, Mick Young, resigned from the Hawke cabinet because he merely failed to declare a Paddington Bear in his wife's luggage. Two years earlier, Fraser minister Michael MacKellar quit after failing to pay import duty on a colour TV that he declared was black-and-white. Ministers in the Weatherill government have never lived up to those standards, merely broadened the rorts. Now it is not so much what is in their suitcases but who is sitting alongside the education ministers at the pointy end of the plane.

Mr Debelle's report is an indictment of the government and its serious lack of oversight from his years as education minister. The now Premier was concerned about the culture of the department when he was the education minister. One might think that concern might lead to the minister keeping a very close eye on what was happening in the department—apparently not. Instead, he drew down the cone of silence around himself and chose not to hear.

The Premier maintains that he was not informed about the crime at the western suburbs school, but I suspect the South Australian public is still scratching its collective head. They will find it puzzling that he was not told in any of his weekly briefings from education department bureaucrats; they will find it hard to believe he was not told when he subsequently visited the very same school where this crime had occurred; and, when they find it impossible to swallow that, they will find it hard to believe that at some stage, whether in the office, before a press conference, in a question time briefing or on the phone or in a pub, his long-time friend and confidant, his then and current chief of staff, Simon Blewett, did not even mention it in passing.

'There is no doubt that my ministerial staff made a mistake,' the Premier said. 'There is no doubt a mistake has been made here, but they are aware of that and I think they are particularly mortified about the fact a mistake was made,' the Premier said. I am sure Mr Blewett is really mortified—so are South Australian school parents and taxpayers who continue to pay the Premier's chief of staff a salary of $184,000 every year with a government car thrown in for good measure.

But mates are mates in the labour movement and what is a mistake between mates anyway? I doubt even his colleagues believe that the Premier was not told. Every political staffer is instructed on day one to pass on all the news to their MP. Every MP tells new staff to keep them informed; it is their duty. We all know well the post-Watergate era—

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley, did I hear you correctly as imputing that the Premier had lied to the Debelle inquiry and that Mr Debelle had made a finding that was incorrect?

Mr PISONI: I don't believe so. We all know in the post-Watergate era that the cover-up can be worse than the crime, and bureaucrats are usually quick to inform ministers when something goes wrong, even if it means a dressing down from a minister if the fault is with the department. For the public to accept that the Premier did not know will require them to believe the Premier is different from every other MP; that his advisers are different from other staff; and that the education department is different from every other department in the western world.

The Premier is, indeed, different. He is not elected by the people but installed by the union movement on the prime qualification that he was not Mike Rann. But he is also indifferent—indifferent to the suffering of those truly wronged in this saga; indifferent to his culpability in this matter and to others too.

Whatever happened to this hotline announced in August 2010 where principals and preschool directors could contact him directly and talk about concerns, issues and ideas. We know that, while they could ring, the now Premier was not listening—it was just another stunt to increase his profile in his bid to be the Premier of South Australia. Mr Speaker, the Premier was not listening then and he is not listening now.

The SPEAKER: My understanding is that the Premier was elected as the member for Cheltenham to a Westminster Parliament. The member for Mitchell.

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