Child protection legislation amended in Upper House

By Jennifer Leete

The State Government's Child Protection Legislation Amendment Bill 2003 passed through the NSW Parliament's Upper House on November 19.

In presenting the second reading speech, Community Services Minister Carmel Tebbutt included a further amendment to the legislation which had been through the Lower House. This amendment arose from constructive discussions between representatives of the Government and a range of groups including Federation, the Independent Education Union, the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations and the Association of Independent Schools.

As reported in the November 17 edition of Education, these groups have been working to persuade the Government to amend its own bill. In addition, the groups have met with shadow education minister Jillian Skinner and shadow community services minister John Ryan.

Arising from that meeting the Opposition prepared an amendment which they were intending to move in the Upper House. Once this became public, representatives of the Government seemed more willing to find their own solution to the issues raised by the education groups.

Federation and other groups also lobbied members of the cross benches in the Upper House and largely received a sympathetic hearing.

The purpose of all this lobbying has been to attempt to increase the range of matters that would be "not-reportable" under the new legislation. The amendment means that, in addition to a number of matters which were already identified as non-reportable in the Government's bill, matters which involve "the use of physical force that, in all the circumstances, is trivial or negligible, but only if the matter is to be investigated and the result at the investigation recorded under workplace employment procedures" will now not be reportable.

The end result of our lobbying has been a bi-partisan approach by the Opposition and the Government in a genuine attempt to respond to the concerns of teachers whilst balancing competing demands from other groups that were nervous about any potential watering down of child protection legislation.

Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon moved amendments in the Upper House in relation to vexatious and malicious allegations and to clarify aspects of retrospectivity of the bill. Whilst these were defeated all politicians who participated in the debate acknowledged the genuineness of teachers' concerns.

The amended bill will go back to the Lower House in December.

This legislation, when passed, arises directly from the effective lobbying by Federation members. I congratulate members on their campaign.

Jennifer Leete is the Deputy President.

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November 2003 contents