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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-24 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

CHILD PROTECTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:56): Today we heard yet another example in this chamber of this government's casual attitude in dealing with child sex offences in our schools. Three years ago, in 2010, when the Premier was the education minister, a 13-year old girl reported to her year level teacher that a year 12 student had sexually assaulted her. The school brushed it off as sexual harassment. There was no mandatory report to the child abuse line by the teacher, nor the school, even though the act is clear, and I quote from section 11 of the act:

Notification of abuse or neglect

(a) a person to whom this section applies suspects on reasonable grounds that a child has been or is being abused or neglected; and

(b) the suspicion is formed in the course of the person's work (whether paid or voluntary) or of carrying out official duties,

The act goes on to identify that:

This section applies to the following persons:

...(h) a teacher in an educational institution (including a kindergarten):

So there is no doubt that there was a breach of the act, and a $10,000 fine is what that can result in. Why did the school dismiss the report as sexual harassment and not call it what was, that is, sexual assault? The Legal Services Commission have on their website for everybody to see the definition of indecent assault, and here it is:

An assault is any kind of touching (or threat of touching) without a person's genuine consent.

What was the outcome of that lack of action by the school? A couple of months later it is alleged that the girl was assaulted again, and there was also an alleged attempted abduction. The department claims the parents were told and offered counselling, but we know that is not the case. We know that is not the case, Mr Speaker, and I look forward to the minister coming in and correcting the record on that issue. That did not happen. As a matter of fact, the first meeting the school had with her parents was initiated by the parents. Again, the minister did not make that clear in the answers to her questions today. After a reported—

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley, are you alleging that the minister misled the house?

Mr PISONI: Oh, not at all, sir, not at all.

The SPEAKER: Splendid.

Mr PISONI: That did not happen. As a matter of fact, the first meeting that the parents had with the school was initiated by the parents after they had reported the matter to the police two years later. The principal signed the meeting notes as a true and correct record of the meeting, but the parents refused to sign it as they did not believe it was a true record of what was discussed. The minister tells us that there has been an investigation, yet the parents were not interviewed or even contacted. As a matter of fact, they are still waiting for the education minister's office to return their calls or respond to their emails.

Here again is another total breakdown in the process under the watch of Premier Weatherill as education minister, which has simmered for three years and moved through two other ministers only to be ignored again by the current education minister, the member for Wright. The minister told the parliament that she wrote to the family. My understanding is that she did not.

Where did this casual attitude to child protection start in this government? We need to go no further than paragraph 480 of Mr Debelle's inquiry, where he refers to a meeting of Ms Emery, who was the director of the Office of the Chief Executive, Ms Pat Jarrett, who was manager of the Minister for Education's business office (that is the now Premier), and Mr Damian Smith, who was the administration officer of the Minister for Education's office. In the note of that minute it says:

Pat—

that is Pat Jarrett—

mentioned that the process of monitoring all critical incident reports within the Minister's Office had 'dropped off' since the election and had organised a meeting with Lucille Lord to have the name of an MLO on the database...

So, that was not even established six months after the member for Cheltenham became the education minister to pick up the previous procedures. These were previous procedures that had been ignored, we know, for at least six months. We do not know what the outcome of that meeting was. Mr Debelle does not explore what the outcome of that meeting was, but what we do know is that the Premier is yet to explain why this happened under his watch when he was the education minister.

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