Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 10 June I attended the Carlisle Primary School to present an award to Natascha Sieg for winning the antibullying slogan award by her school. There were some fantastic slogans put forward and the job of picking the winner would not have been easy. The program has been driven by Sonja Linkston who is the school’s academic program coordinator. Sonja has done a fantastic job and I know this program has the full support of the school’s principal, Margaret Jansen.

As much as this program can be described in glowing terms, such as forward thinking or innovative, the plain fact is that bullying remains a serious problem in our schools. A study by Edith Cowan University, a university attended by many people in my electorate of Swan, found that over a quarter of Australian students in years 4 to 9 are bullied on a regular basis.

This is a statistic which I am sure all members would agree is unacceptable. Parents and children alike have a right to ask: why is this rate so high? It is certainly not because of a lack of public awareness. A recent survey by a local newspaper in my electorate, the Southern Gazette, found that around 47 per cent of respondents from a possible 64 per cent with children were aware of bullying as a big problem in local schools. From my experience, it is also not because a lack of effort from the schools. I know that most schools in my electorate of Swan have anti-bullying policies. The scale of the problem and its unrelenting nature suggests to me that the problem lies not in our awareness and desire to do something about bullying but in our approach. Our traditional methods of tackling bullying are not working. We need to be more innovative; we need to redefine our approach.

That is why I was particularly pleased to attend the launch of the Carlisle Primary School’s new anti-bullying policy. The policy was designed with careful thought after extensive consultation with students, teachers and parents associated with the school and not only educates children about the dangers of bullying but gives children strategies to deal with it. In the new scheme, bullying behaviour will be combated by the shared concern approach, a certain departure from traditional punishment approaches. The shared concern approach includes individual meetings held with each of the students involved in the bullying incident. Each student is asked about the problem and asked to suggest ways in which he or she could personally help to improve the situation. The person being bullied is also given the opportunity to talk. Follow-up meetings give opportunities for the students to change their attitudes. It is certainly a different method, and I will be interested to see how successful the scheme is.

If we are to reduce this problem in our schools and our society, we need to make sure that parents also take the role of reinforcing the standards that are acceptable in our society and schools. Parents should not leave the standard-setting to schools. It would be tragic to see programs such as the new Carlisle Primary School program become ineffective due to a lack of positive parental attitude in the home. In conclusion, everyone in our community has the right to a safe and supportive learning environment in our schools. Carlisle Primary School has started this process and should be commended for it.