Five days after the Gutwein Government and Minister for Education and Children Sarah Courtney were caught out attempting to cover up deeply troubling evidence of child sexual abuse in the Tasmanian public school system, serious and important questions remain unanswered.
Shadow Minister for Child Safety Sarah Lovell said Ms Courtney needed to face Tasmanians and provide a guarantee that no stone had been left unturned to keep children safe.
Ms Lovell said it was beyond appalling that the Liberal Government had released a highly sanitised version of the Tasmanian Department of Education's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report only because it was aware the full report was about to be made public under a Right To Information request.
That report revealed 21 people working in the public school system had been identified as requiring a more detailed review or possible further investigation and Ms Courtney had not adequately answered crucial questions about whether 16 of them were now or in the future able to continue working with children.
Ms Lovell said in addition Ms Courtney needed to urgently address other issues in her important areas of responsibility including:
- What she is doing about the unacceptably high number of children in "active transition" - that is, reported to Child Safety Services but not allocated a case worker - which has more than doubled under her watch to more than 120 over the past year
- When she became aware that a young person had been released from the Ashley Youth Detention Centre into homelessness only to be later found sleeping in a tent and what - if anything - she did to ensure that young person's safety
"Ms Courtney's flippant, uncaring response to these extremely disturbing revelations over the past week simply fails to meet the standard required of a Minister responsible for ensuring that all Tasmanian kids are safe," Ms Lovell said.
"It's become all too clear that Ms Courtney is either not paying enough attention to her key responsibilities or she doesn't consider those responsibilities important.
"It's just as clear that Tasmanians are right to believe children truly deserve better than this Minister."
Sarah Lovell MLC
Shadow Minister for Child Safety
