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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-30 Daily Xml
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CHILD PROTECTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:12): Today I would like to draw to the attention of the house that it is the one year anniversary of when this house learnt about the way the government mishandled the rape of a seven year old in a western suburbs school. If you recall, when questions were asked of the education minister, the education minister said that the police had told the education department not to tell anybody about what had happened.

Of course, within about 20 minutes of the minister's statement in parliament, the police put out their own media release saying that that, in fact, was wrong, and that the police had given the contrary advice, and that was to tell the parents. Of course, the police commissioner, in subsequent media, went on to say that it was important that parents be told in such situations because it could actually help the investigation.

The Premier was asked questions, and he made the claim in parliament that neither he nor his office were told about the rape of the seven year-old; but then he had to come back a very short time later and correct that claim because his office had in fact been told in an email that was sent to his chief of staff Simon Blewett and his chief adviser on child protection matters Jadynne Harvey. Yet, Mr Blewett went on to confirm that he had sent that email on to somebody else—could not remember who that somebody else was—but was absolutely sure that it was not Premier Weatherill.

Once the Liberal Party raised this in parliament and media followed, other parents contacted the Liberal Party to tell their stories of how the department had mishandled sex abuse of their children. Remember there was the boy who was raped at a regional school by an older student. It was ignored by the minister's office (the then education minister, the now Premier) and the department with her request for support for her son. The family of an 11 year-old who was sexually assaulted by another student was told by the department that it was the victim who should avoid the perpetrator in the school grounds in the future. Again, there was no support from the department or the Premier's office when he was the education minister.

In order to avoid further questions on this matter in the parliament and the media, the education minister then immediately set up the inquiry, known as the Debelle inquiry. Of course, that was designed by the government to be a shield from questions in the parliament and a shield from questions of the media about what happened in that western suburbs school on 2 December 2010.

We soon learnt that Mr Debelle had no powers to conduct a proper investigation. Mr Debelle wrote in his report that it took him three requests (two verbal requests and a written request) to ministers of the crown, ministers of the government, to have royal commission powers. I understand that that led to a very hostile and animated debate in cabinet and finally those powers were granted.

Mr Debelle's report was damning of the Premier's advisers and the Premier's defence of their actions. The parents from the western suburbs school had previously written to minister Portolesi only to be told a lie that they had prevented her from telling them what had happened. FOI documents that have come out since this inquiry and there are half a dozen parents who wrote to—

The SPEAKER: I am sorry, member for Unley. What was the lie?

Mr PISONI: The lie was established by Mr Debelle and that was that parents could be told about the rape of the seven year old and yet the department kept telling parents, and the minister for education kept telling parents, that the court wouldn't allow them to be told. That was the lie, Mr Speaker.

We discovered that the department's head of legal services was not a lawyer. The report was also scathing of the processes in the department that led to unanswered questions. So concerned about the government's refusal to answer these questions were members that all non-government members of the Legislative Council (except for the Hon. Mr Finnigan who was not in the chamber when the vote was conducted) voted to set up a select committee. We have since heard the Premier's chief of staff concede to the committee that he didn't believe an email marked 'urgent' alerting him to a staff member in a school involved in sexual behaviour with children was urgent—an extraordinary admission by the Premier's own chief of staff. 'Not an urgent matter' I think was the term he used in that committee.

Time expired.

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