Thursday, 31 July 2025

Early childhood education and care

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:27): (988) My question is to the Leader of the Government in the Council. On 18 July it was disappointing to see the government fail to produce documents ordered by this Council relating to complaints, abuse and enforcement failures in Victorian childcare centres. After a very similar motion, my Greens colleagues in New South Wales received documents within 29 days, following an order by an independent legal arbiter. Those documents were released in tranches, allowing for a realistic timeframe with sensitivity to children’s privacy and appropriate redactions. The motion that was put and passed by this chamber ordering the production of documents by the government – that motion’s scope was narrower than the one that was successfully answered in New South Wales, and it asked for less documents. So my question is: will the government consider releasing these documents in manageable tranches, like they did in New South Wales?

The PRESIDENT: Ms Copsey, could you repeat the question? Just the actual question.

Katherine COPSEY: Will the government consider releasing these documents in manageable tranches, like they did in New South Wales?

The PRESIDENT: I was concerned yesterday. I will just try to externalise my thoughts first. I think yesterday I was concerned because there is no sort of description in the general orders of the Leader of the Government in the upper house. But in saying that, when there is a call for paperwork, the motion usually calls on the Leader of the Government to deliver that paperwork. So when it comes to asking about paperwork, I think that is probably a fair space to be in. I am just concerned about asking the Treasurer a question relating to another jurisdiction.

Katherine COPSEY: We had a productive, I thought, exchange on this yesterday, where the Leader of the Government answered in what capacity she was able to and indicated that there was openness to discussing ways that we can proceed and make this function of this chamber work for all of us. I appreciate there may not entirely be consistency between the two jurisdictions, but I think it is a relevant example of how the Parliament can work together to make this happen.

The PRESIDENT: Before I call the Treasurer, the other concern that I have is whether this is the same question that was asked yesterday. The Leader of the Government, I am sure, will be happy to answer as she sees fit.

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:30): I thank Ms Copsey for her question following on from the discussion yesterday. At the outset I will respond to your comparison between New South Wales and Victoria. I am only in a position to do that because I have looked at it, not necessarily in my capacity regarding any of my responsibilities but just by virtue of the fact that I accept that with requests for documents, the ability of government to respond in the time that everyone would like is really frustrated by the way that we are all operating. But to suggest that the New South Wales Legislative Council in some way did what we are not doing is inaccurate, because if you check Hansard of 18 March, you will see that their processes involved a lot of negotiated rescoping and having conversations about that. They are the conversations that I actually have invited. I do not think question time is the opportunity for us to have that discussion, because I do not think we can have it in 2 minutes.

But what I would draw the house’s attention to is that we have motions that have been on the notice paper for months, and I would refer to notice of motion 449 in Minister Blandthorn’s name, which is putting there for the consideration of the chamber a variation of scope of order for the production of documents. We have been presenting opportunities for parties to come to us and offer solutions. This is a chamber discussion. It is not up to government to present how we think we should fix what we all collectively agree is not working, and I have invited those conversations. The door has not been knocked on to have those conversations. In fact, you are using question time to ask me to respond to something that I think we have a responsibility as a chamber to come up with. Yes, I am happy to have these conversations. As I said, I do not think question time – we have a Procedure Committee.

As the Leader of the Government I am happy to speak to other representatives of other parties in relation to some of the steps that we can take. But I do reiterate, on the documents motion that you specifically refer to, that the advice we have received from the Department of Education on the first run-through identifying the amount of documents that would be captured by the request that you made is 1 million – 1 million documents including personal information, sensitive information and protected information. So the ability to go through that material and even determine what could come out – it is frustrating.

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn SYMES: I am offering –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn SYMES: To respond to Ms Gray-Barberio’s interjection – she is asking me to work with her – I think that is what my answer is, but I am not going to redefine –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn SYMES: If people want us to bring on motion 449, perhaps we should schedule that for next sitting week.

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:34): I do thank the minister for indulging a response on this point. I will just take issue with one thing that was raised. We collectively adopted these rules as a chamber at the beginning of this term. They are the current rules of this chamber, and the government is not complying with them.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Katherine COPSEY: The minister asserts it is impossible for the government to comply with the production of documents, and we are trying to find a way for the government to obey the rules that this chamber has set. My supplementary question is: respectful to the administration and ensuring due diligence around privacy, will the government at least make a commitment that they will eventually release these documents – yes or no?

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:34): It is not possible for me to give that commitment. You are literally asking me to potentially disclose personal, sensitive information. You said, ‘Will we ultimately release documents?’ It might take quite some time to get through these documents, but they are in the process, with a commitment to, yes, releasing what we can. But that process is not quick.

Katherine Copsey: On a point of order, President, I am not sure if the Treasurer heard me, but I did say ‘respectful to the need to ensure privacy’. So please do not continue to bring that up as a barrier.

The PRESIDENT: The minister was responsive to the question.

Jaclyn SYMES: Ms Copsey, I will read directly from the advice that was provided to the relevant minister, who has provided this to me. The advice from the Department of Education is that it is estimated that more than 1 million documents may require review in order to identify, review and redact documents that are in the scope of the order. Your question was about whether we will release them – they are in the process. This is literally what people are looking at. But when there are 1 million documents, I cannot give you an estimate of how long this will take.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, it is a long-held practice of this place that when documents are referred to, they are tabled. The minister has clearly referred to a document and she has quoted from that document. I would ask that the minister table the document because that document is being relied upon to substantiate a claim that there are a million documents when what the minister has read today indicates there may or may not be a million documents.

The PRESIDENT: I was assuming the minister was reading from notes. Minister?

Jaclyn SYMES: I am referring to notes.