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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-09 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Renmark High School Presentation

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:36): In recent days, in fact over the last week, many South Australian families, indeed people around Australia and more broadly, have learned of the situation that happened at Renmark High School on 22 March.

They have been appalled, concerned and made very anxious about what would be the circumstances if they as parents were confronted to hear, as unfortunately a number of parents at Renmark High School did, their children come home and describe to them a presentation ostensibly on respectful relationships and consent where instead the presenter apparently, allegedly, raised concepts of incest and bestiality, concepts which, as the Minister for Education rightly said in question time just past, were utterly inappropriate for the session, as indeed was this presentation.

The member for Chaffey, Tim Whetstone, during question time set out the scene very clearly with a range of concerns about failures that have led to this situation, the first being that when the session that was to be held was prepared, parents were not notified. Again, the minister has confirmed that this is not in accordance with departmental procedure. This departmental procedure is very important. It is set in place so that when parents have views about the content of curriculum, in particular in relation to sensitive topics such as sexual education and respectful relationships and consent education, they have the opportunity to deny their consent.

I would suggest that the vast majority of parents in South Australia do not necessarily want their children to be denied the opportunity to have professionally delivered sex education, consent education and respectful relationships education, but it is absolutely right that parents be given the opportunity to make it their decision whether their child takes part in that. The school has apologised for its failure to follow procedure and protocol on this occasion, and that is also right, but it is important that we get to the bottom of how this happened so that we can ensure it does not happen again.

A second key issue here, again as acknowledged by the minister and the chief executive of the department, is that the department's processes and procedures in relation to duty of care do not appear to have been followed. Whatever the legal status, certainly the department's procedures would expect that when a third-party provider is presenting a session of this or any other nature, the school retains a duty of care to its students. There should have been an adult in the room, a teacher in the room, somebody responsible for the wellbeing of those students who could have put a stop to the session as it was going on once it was very clear that the content was inappropriate. That did not happen.

We look forward to the conclusion of the investigation that the minister has indicated the department is putting forward so that we can understand why this happened, how this happened and how we can ensure it does not happen again.

There were a number of questions answered during question time. There are several that we look forward to the answer to. We look forward to the process that will hopefully see a copy of this presentation released so that we can assess more clearly what was included in it. However, from what has been provided and indeed acknowledged by the government, it was utterly inappropriate. There are many more questions in relation to how this was able to happen and what the department's response will be.

I am grateful to the minister for his indication of early and quick responses as soon as that happens and he understands, I am certain, that the community and the South Australian public will hold him to those assurances, as they will the government.

In question time the minister also raised that the government is proposing to have an approved provider list, and there are a couple of questions relating to the detail about that. It is important and it is certainly the Liberal Party's strong view that following the Renmark High School incident it is necessary to conduct this review, this audit, if you like, of the programs that are available so that principals and school leaders around South Australia if they are engaging with third party providers can do so with confidence that the content and the material being provided is fit for purpose and suitable, and suitable for engagement with minors in a school context.

We understand the critical importance of issues raised by Chanel Contos, for example, and the thousands of young Australian women who gave their testimony as to the importance of consent and sex education, given the sexual assault experiences that they had received and their accusations of the department some three or four years ago—not just our department in South Australia but around Australia—that insufficient information had been provided. That is why the Morrison government responded with an urgency to ensure that the national curriculum did have an appropriate level of resource in it.

The provision of that consent education must be by people who are delivering content that is appropriate, that is age appropriate and that does not transcend the boundaries of what is reasonable for South Australian and Australian students. I look forward to seeing further work on this approved provider list and hopefully this work will be important in reassuring parents that their concerns have been taken seriously.

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