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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-17 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

CHILD PROTECTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:06): Today I talk about the tawdry tale of school porn hush money and the department bagmen. Almost unbelievably, there was revealed this week yet another tawdry tale of a cover-up by the education department under this Labor government where the interests of preventing embarrassment for the minister and covering their tracks often takes precedence over the interests of children and young people.

A deal was made to pay a student (now 23 years old) $30,000 hush money for a false allegation of accessing pornography in 2004 on his school computer—an accusation which had dire consequences for his education and future life but apparently had little effect on the career of the teacher who did access the porn using the student's internet account. The teacher, only stood down once the issue became public, is still employed by the department despite the fact that in an email to the victim by one of the department bagmen negotiating the deal, head of legal services Don Mackie, says:

...unofficially I share your concerns regarding the teacher and will be doing everything I can to remedy the situation as people like that shouldn't be in the teaching profession.

He was in the profession for nine years after the offence. It is indeed tragic that such is the state of education under the Labor government that top departmental bureaucrats can only show their concern for such behaviour unofficially, but it is this culture that consistently has let down students, parents, and hardworking principals and teachers in our schools.

Of course, now it is in the media, the minister has ordered an urgent review, and the Premier—still reeling from his own failures as education minister—has graciously on radio this week waived the confidentiality clause, 'The victim can keep his compensation and we won't ask for it back.' Well, that is really big of him, after what the student has gone through during the last nine years.

As with the case of the western suburbs school rape, the sexual assaults at a southern suburbs school, and other cases highlighted in recent months, consideration of and concessions to victims under the Premier's government seem only to occur when the opposition and media focus attention on their plight.

Given the circumstances of this case, the Premier's concession comes across as a little grubby and even, some would suggest, sleazy. But it is the image of departmental bureaucrats travelling the state offering hush money and contracts with confidentiality clauses to victims to prevent scandal for their political masters that should be of most concern to South Australians.

How often has this happened under this tainted Labor government administration, and how much taxpayers' money has been spent in this way? How many more victims of the education department have been paid hush money not to tell their stories? Most importantly, how much damage has been brought on these victims because of this forced silence? In going through some of the correspondence that the victim, whom we will describe as 'John', has provided, we can see that an email was written by Mr Don Mackie to the victim in which he says:

Some draft words you may wish to consider as part of seeking an apology as we discussed on Friday. I am running late at the moment but will give you a telephone call in the next hour. Please send a confirmation that you received this email.

The draft goes on to suggest, it is actually a written letter, a letter that Mr Mackie wrote, that the victim should write to Mr Mackie to ask for the apology. Of course, Mr Mackie wrote back—an extraordinary situation. Mr Mackie advised, or wrote the letter, that the victim wrote to Mr Mackie to ask for the apology. Obviously, that was done so that the letter conformed and asked the right questions that Mr Mackie had the answers for to make sure that the department was protected.

It is an extraordinary situation that we have here in South Australia with the Department of Education. What an extraordinary 12 months it has been since the opposition raised the situation in the western suburbs school of the rape of a seven year old that was hidden from parents until it was raised in this place on 30 October of last year.

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