Category: MIL-OSI

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

DAVID WOIWOD: Well, any family of a child who has faced bullying knows the debilitating and sometimes catastrophic impact it can have. The Albanese Government has been under pressure to take action and overnight announced $10 million and a new national plan.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Now, $5 million will go to a national awareness campaign, $5 million towards new resources for teachers, students and parents, educating them on how to deal with bullying and how to be a – quote – “upstander”. And the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, joins us now.

Hello, Jason. Good to see you. Ok, let’s unpack this a little bit so we can understand it better. Under this plan, schools should respond within two days. So, what keeps them to that timeline and what sort of response are you talking about?

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, what parents told us. We commissioned a big review here and talked to parents about what’s working and what’s not. And mums and dads told us that often it takes just too long for the school to act and that the earlier we act, the more chance we’ve got of nipping this in the bud and stopping the bullying from happening.

I think this is something that every mum and dad worries about. I know I do. And the terrible truth is it’s getting worse, not better. The internet is a big part of that. It’s not just push and shove in the playground today. Bullying can follow you all the way home and you can get bullied day or night, and anyone can see it. It’s worse than that. AI is supercharging this problem. We heard stories yesterday from the eSafety Commissioner, not about children bullying other children, but AI chatbots, artificial intelligence, bullying other children, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. We heard stories about children overseas killing themselves because artificial intelligence told them to. So, that’s how terrifying this is. And what parents have told us is we think action needs to be faster within the first two days for action to be taken by the school to get to the bottom of what’s happening, to take action to stop it. And that involves not just talking to the children at the school, but also talking to the mums and dads, to the parents of the victim of the bullying and the parents of the child that’s doing the bullying. And the sooner we act, the better. But what teachers told us is they need help too. There’s a lot of great programs out there that are being run by some schools. We’re going to put them all online so all schools know where to go to get best practice, but also to develop some more tools for teachers, and, in addition to that, some tools for parents – because if you’re the mum and dad who gets a phone call and you’re told your child’s been a victim of bullying, or if you’re a mum and dad who’s told your child’s the bully, they’re telling us we need to know what to do next.

WOIWOD: Minister, yes, so this timeline has now been sped up just a couple of days, as you point out. But that doesn’t mean that the bullying will actually stop. So, what in this $10 million will actually get us there?

CLARE: Yeah. And mate, I’m not naive about this. There’s always been bullies, there’ll always be bullying. And as I just said, a lot of this is now happening not in the playground, it’s happening online. But schools are places where we can take action to try and address this. And so what we’ve said is this is the standard, two days. The sooner you act, the better. And Ministers agreed yesterday that we need to develop an implementation plan that will kick off in February about how we implement this. Part of it is that two-day rule, part of it is bringing all of the best programs together in one place. But we also agreed yesterday that this needs to be part of teachers’ professional development; those pupil-free days where teachers sit down and work together to get ready for school. And in addition to that, that we should make it part of the course at university. So, when someone’s training to be a teacher, in addition to the changes we’re making to help them teach children to read and to write and to manage disruptive classrooms, that we also give them better tools when they’re training about how to deal with bullying and other harmful behaviours at school.

WRIGHT: Absolutely. And trauma response training is very specialised. But Jason, I’ve got five teachers in my family, they are pushed as it is. So, anyone that knows a teacher knows that there’s already so much pressure on them. It sounds like we’re loading it up more. 10 million bucks, 5 million for an awareness campaign and 5 million to have online resources. It’s great. But how are you going to ease the pressure for them in the classroom to enable them? Are they going to be more student-free days? How do you physically do this and educate them?

CLARE: Yeah, and believe me, this is not about trying to load up or add work to teachers because they’re already overloaded. The truth is bullying’s already happening. We know it’s there. It’s affecting kids at school. It means not just the mental health challenges that some children are facing, but it also means children are falling behind because they’re affected by this at school, or that some children aren’t at school at all. The better we tackle it the easier we are going to make it for teachers to do what they came to school to do which is to teach children. So those resources we think will help, but there’s a lot of other things we need to do to reduce workload for teachers. One of the other things we discussed yesterday are the changes we need to make to the curriculum. We agreed yesterday to look at the maths curriculum for the first three years at school to make it simpler and to provide more materials, more support for teachers to make sure that they have the help they need to teach maths in the right order so kids learn the basics when they’re really little, that’s just another example of the work we’re doing to try and help our teachers.

WRIGHT: And also teaching kids to be upstanders and not to walk past the behaviour. Jason Clare, thank you very much.

WOIWOD: Thanks, Minister.

CLARE: No worries, thank you.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

ALISON PIOTROWSKI: More now on the sweeping reforms coming to every Australian school and this is all part of a major bullying crackdown.

TIM DAVIES: Yeah. Under the changes, schools will have 48 hours to act on complaints and teachers will receive specialised training. For more, we’re joined by Education Minister Jason Clare. Minister, nice to see you. A lot of welcome changes here, but when can parents actually expect to see them rolled out?

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, I think this is something that every mum and dad worries about when your children go to school, that they’re going to be bullied. And the truth is, it’s not like it was when we were at school. A lot of bullying now happens online on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. So, the changes that we’re making to crackdown on social media for young people under the age of 16 that start on the 10th of December will really help, but it’s not going to do everything. And that’s what this plan’s about. Parents have told us that they think it’s really important that we nip this in the bud where there’s a complaint that bullying has happened at school, that the school needs to take action within the first 48 hours to get to the bottom of what’s happened and to take action to stop the harm from happening. And that involves talking to the children, but it also involves talking to the mums and dads, the parents of the child that’s been bullied and the parents of the child that’s been doing the bullying. So, we want that to happen, and we want it to roll out as quickly as possible.

PIOTROWSKI: This all sounds really promising, Minister, but teachers have so much on their plates, they have such a heavy workload. Who’s going to be responsible for training teachers? How is that going to work?

CLARE: Yeah, you’re right. Hopefully what this does is help our teachers. We’re going to allocate $5 million to provide some tools for teachers. While parents have told us they want action earlier, parents have, sorry, teachers have told us that they need the tools and the training so that they can do the job properly. There’s a lot of great plans and programs that are already out there that are being used by some schools. We’re going to put all of those online in a hub so that schools can go to one place to get the best tools and the best programs to roll out in their schools. But we’re also going to provide more resources, not just for teachers, but for parents too. So, if you’re a mum or a dad and you’re told that your child’s being bullied at the school, there’ll be resources for you about what to do. But also, parents who have been told by their school that their child is the bully are asking us, what do I need to do as a mum or a dad to take action at home to make sure that it doesn’t happen again as well. So, we want to provide resources for them too.

DAVIES: What implications are there for children in terms of punishment if they are bullying other students? I know we’ve got a lot of training happening here for the adults. What about the kids and the ones that are bullying others?

CLARE: Well, it can involve suspension, it can involve expulsion in the most extreme circumstances. Hopefully what happens here is that if you act early, you can stop the harm from repeating, you can stop the action from reoccurring. We know that if kids are bullied, massive mental health issues, but not just that. It can mean that children fall behind at school. It can sometimes mean that children don’t turn up to school at all. So, that’s why we’re taking this action. It’s really serious for our kids. We heard yesterday when we were briefed, all Education Ministers, by the eSafety Commissioner, that this has got to the point now where it’s not just kids bullying other kids. Artificial intelligence means that we’ve got AI chatbots out there now that are bullying other children, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. We’ve had cases overseas where children have killed themselves because an AI chatbot has told them to do that. I don’t think I’ve heard anything as terrifying as that. That’s why we’re taking this as seriously as we are. I’m not naive. I’m not assuming that there’s never going to be bullies or that we can stop bullying entirely. A lot of it doesn’t happen at school. But schools are places where we can act. And so we’re trying to set in place some standards, some rules and some tools to help, to take action to help our kids.

PIOTROWSKI: Alright, Minister, let’s move on. The troubles for the Opposition keep on coming. I wanted to find out, what do you make of Barnaby Joyce’s possible move to join forces with Pauline Hanson and One Nation?

CLARE: I don’t know what’s in Barnaby or Pauline’s head. You know, if they get together, that’s a matter for them. The Liberal Party and the National Party are in a world of pain at the moment. I’m not going to get distracted by that. Our job is to focus on the things that matter for mums and dads that are watching right now, things like taking action to protect our kids that are bullied at school. But not just that. The other big issue we focused on yesterday when Education Ministers met was about how we fix the curriculum, particularly for the teaching of mathematics for kids in primary school, those first three years of prep or kindy in year one and year two. We made the decision yesterday that we think work needs to be done on the maths curriculum. Maths is so important for success in life and the first three years of maths are critical to make sure that you get the basics. And so we made a decision yesterday to do work on that part of the curriculum. So, that’s an example of what we’re doing. We’re focused on the things that matter. We’re not focused on the what’s going on with Barnaby or what’s going on with Pauline.

DAVIES: Yeah, well, that action on bullying certainly can’t come fast enough. Minister Jason Clare, we appreciate your time on Today. Thank you.

CLARE: Cheers.

Source: New South Wales – News

Just after 2.40pm today (Saturday 18 October), police and emergency services were called to Gorge Road after reports of a crash involving a car and motorcyclist.

Major Crash officers are attending the scene.

Road closures are in place.

Please avoid the area if possible.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

Education Ministers have agreed to a new national plan to address bullying in Australian Schools as recommended by the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review.

The Federal Government will back the plan agreed by Education Ministers on Friday with up to $10 million investment to get the work we have to do started.

The investment supports two of the main recommendations of the Review:

• Putting $5 million behind a national awareness campaign, and
• another $5 million behind new resources for teachers, students and parents. This will include resources for students on how to be ‘upstanders’ against bullying with evidence showing peer-based approaches can be powerful.

The Anti-Bullying Rapid Review examined current school procedures and best practice methods to address bullying behaviours.

One of the key recommendations is the need for timely and clear action when a complaint or incident takes place. The Review recommended schools should respond within two school days to a complaint or incident.

The Review received over 1,700 submissions from parents, students, teachers and staff, with the majority of submissions being from parents.

The submissions have informed the recommendations and help ensure they are grounded in evidence and informed by lived experiences.

The Report highlights we need to:

• Apply a whole-of-school approach to preventing and addressing bullying and other harmful behaviours, including through empowering and equipping parents/carers, students and the school workforce,
• Ensure there is strong and visible school leadership to drive the culture change,
• Enhance transparency on anti-bullying actions,
• Implement evidence-based approaches, and
• Support the school workforce to prevent and address bullying.

The plan builds on the success of a national mobile phone ban which has improved learning outcomes in schools.

The Government’s social media ban for Under 16s will also come into effect from 10 December, which will help to reduce online bullying.

This is just the start and the hard work is ahead of us to make our schools safe and protect children.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education Jason Clare:

“Bullying is cruel and it’s dangerous.

“It doesn’t just leave physical scars, it leaves invisible scars that can last a lifetime.

“That’s why we’ve taken action with this national plan to address bullying.

“A lot of parents told us it was taking too long for some schools to act on bullying complaints.

“The Anti-Bullying Rapid Review recommends that schools should respond within two school days to a complaint or incident.

“If we’re going to properly tackle bullying, we need to nip it in the bud and to act early.

“And we need to make sure teachers have the right tools and training so they know how to act and what to do.

“This is just the start and the hard work is ahead of us to make our schools safe and protect children.”

Source: New South Wales – News

Emergency services were called to a shop on Henley Beach Road about 11.30am today (Saturday 18 October) by reports that three men of Asian appearance entered the store and started a fire, possibly using a Molotov cocktail.

MFS were quickly in attendance with the fire causing damage to the business.

The business was open at the time with several people inside suffering non life-threatening injuries.

Police were later called to a house in Blenheim Street at Angle Park after reports that a man had suffered burns in a barbecue fire.

Upon further investigation, police found that the man may have been involved in the Mile End fire.

He was taken to hospital for treatment of serious but non life-threatening injuries.

Police are investigating if this incident is related to Operation Eclipse.

Anyone who may have witnessed suspicious activity in either area is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or online at www.crimestopperssa.com.au

268819

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

The Australian Government and every State and Territory have now signed up to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, which we finalised this year. 

The $16.5 billion is the biggest new investment in public schools by the Australian Government ever and is tied to real practical reforms. 

Yesterday Education Ministers agreed to the next steps in school education reform. 

They include work to: 

• create a new Australian Teaching and Learning Commission,
• improve the maths curriculum in the first three years of school, and
• update the national professional standards for teachers. 

Australian Teaching and Learning Commission 

Ministers agreed in principle to establish a new Australian Teaching and Learning Commission. 

The Commission would bring under one roof: 

• the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA);
• the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL);
• the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO); and
• Education Services Australia (ESA). 

The Commission would allow for greater co-ordination between curriculum, teaching, assessment, research, and reporting, with the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. 

A Working Group will provide advice to Ministers in February on the potential detailed design of the Commission. 

Ministers made clear that this will involve consultation with teachers, school leaders and school staff, First Nations people and unions. 

Maths Curriculum 

Education Ministers agreed to start work on curriculum reform beginning with maths. 

On the advice of ACARA, Education Ministers have initiated a targeted review of the maths curriculum in the first three years of school (F-2). These first three years of maths are critical. 

This maths curriculum review has been prioritised because: 

• Maths learning is highly cumulative so we have to get the early foundations right.
• Teachers have flagged challenges with the implementation of the current early maths curriculum. 

This is the first targeted review of the curriculum Education Ministers have agreed to as part of a ten-year curriculum review cycle. 

This is keyhole surgery to improve the parts of the curriculum that need it most. 

These curriculum reforms are about making sure we can prioritise key parts of the curriculum while responding to the feedback teachers have given about workload. 

National Teacher Standards Reform 

Ministers asked the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to scope a review of Teacher Standards. This was a recommendation of the recent Teacher Workforce Roundtable. 

The Teacher Standards have not been updated since they were adopted 15 years ago. 

AITSL will present a proposal to Education Ministers in February. 

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education Jason Clare: 

“This is the next big step in school reform. 

“A basic grasp of maths is critical. 

“The evidence is really clear. If you get maths, it helps to set you up for success. It’s critical for life and work. 

“Maths helps us make better decisions and boosts productivity. 

“And it’s really important that you get the basics early. 

“If you don’t get the basics right at the start, you can’t build on it. 

“The first three years of school are crucial for reading and maths. Every moment counts. 

“How maths is taught is really important. It is cumulative. You learn it step by step. 

“A number of principals and teachers have told us the current maths curriculum is too complex. 

“Others have told us teachers need more support to implement the curriculum, with clear advice on what to teach in what order. 

“That’s why we’re bringing forward work on the current maths curriculum for the start of school and creating better materials to help teachers. 

“This is just one of the things we need to do. 

“Explicit teaching is important and States are starting to roll that out. 

“We have also got to identify really early the children who are falling behind and need more help. 

“That’s what the Year 1 Numeracy Check is all about, and it starts to roll out next year. 

“We have also got to provide children who fall behind with more help. That’s why we are funding catch up tutoring. 

“It’s time we took a look at the Teacher Standards too. 

“We need standards that reflect what’s going on in the classroom today, that back in teachers and support great teaching.” 

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

The Australian Government will implement a new set of University Governance Principles to strengthen accountability, transparency and public trust in Australian universities. 

The Principles respond to serious concerns about the standards of university governance. They will be written into Commonwealth regulation through the Threshold Standards. 

Universities will be required to report annually on compliance with the Principles on an ‘if not, why not’ basis to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). 

The Principles were drafted by the Expert Council on University Governance, which included Chair Melinda Cilento, Sharan Burrow AC and Bruce Cowley. 

The Australian Government, in collaboration with the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal, states and territories, and stakeholders including the Universities Chancellors Council, will establish a remuneration framework for Vice-Chancellor remuneration. 

University governing bodies will also be required to publish: 

• outcomes of meetings and decisions taken,
• consultancy spending, its purpose, value and justification,
• Vice-Chancellors’ external roles,
• annual remuneration reports in line with requirements for public companies, and
• composition of governing bodies. 

Skills matrices of universities will be reviewed to ensure they include members with higher education sector expertise and student and staff voices. 

Australian universities receive over $22 billion in public funding each year and play a central role in Australia’s civic, economic and social life through education and research. 

With this public investment and their public role, universities should exhibit high standards of governance but too many are falling short. 

These Principles establish a clear governance framework for universities, similar to the ASX Corporate Governance Principles for listed companies. 

The Principles set strong expectations across eight key themes: 

• Accountability: Governance structures and accountabilities are well-defined, effective and transparent.
• Diversity of perspectives: Composition of the governing body enables purpose and performance.
• Independence: Academic standards and freedom are respected and protected.
• Transparency: Purpose, strategy and performance are clear and openly communicated.
• Trustworthy: The university operates lawfully, ethically, responsibly, and consistent with its public purpose.
• Inclusive and responsive: Expectations of the university’s community and stakeholders are understood, respected and responded to.
• Sustainable: Risks are understood and managed effectively.
• Responsible: Workforce and remuneration are structured fairly and responsibly. 

TEQSA will be able to take compliance action against universities that repeatedly fail to meet the Principles. 

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education Jason Clare: 

“If you don’t think there are challenges in university governance, you’ve been living under a rock.

“These are important reforms that help make sure our universities meet the standards their students, staff and whole communities expect.” 

Quotes attributable to Expert Council on University Governance Chair Melinda Cilento: 

“I strongly support the Principles and the ‘if not, why not’ approach to their implementation as the best way to sustainably uplift governance given the diversity of the sector and the rapidly evolving environment in which universities operate. 

“I hope that universities and their leadership genuinely, proactively and transparently adopt the Principles, communicate their priorities and outline how they are proposing to respond to the issues raised through our work. 

“Greater transparency and reporting, coupled with open and positive stakeholder engagement should accelerate support for and confidence in the Principles and contribute positively to university governance. 

“I think this is important not just for the effectiveness of the Principles but more broadly in terms of improving trust in the sector and its leadership. 

“I would encourage all stakeholders to use the Principles as the basis to address and advance governance issues important to them.”

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

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Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

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