In November 2008 the State Council of the Queensland Teachers' Union (QTU) at last responded to the growing concern about the unjust treatment of Queensland teachers during Departmental "investigations".
The QTU is planning to launch a campaign to persuade the Queensland Department of Education to change their unjust "disciplinary processes".
Time to bring justice to investigations, Paige Bousen, Acting Assistant Secretary - Services Co-Ordination, and Mark Anghel, Assistant Secretary - Legal Services / Welfare, p.21, Queensland Teachers' Journal, Volume 32 number 4, 5 June, 2009.
Queensland Department of Education "disciplinary processes" are unjust - and are wide open to abuse by principals and senior officers of the Department of Education.
Too many trivial "issues" concerning classroom teachers are being "beaten up" and put forward to be investigated by the Department of Education Ethical Standards Unit.
A principal may claim that "confidential allegations" have been made against a teacher.
This may be totally untrue.
Or it may be a "beat up" of some simple incident.
The resulting Ethical Standards Unit "investigative process" can take years.
This delay facilitates the workplace abuse.
The classroom teacher's health will almost certainly be broken down by the stress of the abuse.
Then the principal can just tell the Ethical Standards Unit investigator that "it was all so long ago" and that they really can't remember what they did or why they did it.
Too easy.
Classroom teachers may never find out what was being "alleged" against them.
This makes it impossible for the classroom teacher to ever respond to the "allegations".
So they can never prove themselves innocent.
Investigators may refuse to interview witnesses who are supportive of the teacher.
Investigators may put a huge mass of falsified documents on the teacher's investigation file, creating the false impression that the falsified documents have been discussed with the teacher during their "investigation".
Investigators may only be allowed by the Ethical Standards Branch to examine documents that have been provided to them by the classroom teacher.
But the classroom teacher may not be allowed to know the "Terms of Reference" of the investigation.
So the classroom teacher has no way of knowing what documents to give the investigator.
The "Terms of Reference" of the investigation may be continually changed.
And, if the teacher manages to respond to an allegation and to disprove it, the allegation can simply be changed.
Again and again.
If the classroom teacher makes a Freedom of Information application, all copies of Education Queensland investigation reports may be declared "lost".
But decisions concerning the classroom teacher will have been based on these "lost" investigation reports.
And then other decisions will be based on these decisions based on the "lost" investigation report.
And so it continues.
A chain of decisions based on decisions based on a "lost" investigation report.
A junior Aboriginal employee of Education Queensland with no qualifications in education, law or psychology may be used by the Ethical Standards Unit to conduct faux "internal reviews".
You may consider that Aboriginal employees of the Department of Education who are used in this manner are being abused and exploited.
This Aboriginal "internal reviewer" - who identifies with a primarily oral culture - may not be allowed to speak to the classroom teacher.
He may be instructed to base his "internal review" on the huge mass of falsifed "records" that have secretly been placed on the classroom teachers' file.
And he may be instructed not to "consider" the classroom teacher's written response to the mass of falsified "records".
An "internal reviewer" can claim to have "inferred" almost any gibberish "from the documents".
He can claim to have "inferred" the exact opposite of what is actually written in the documents.
The Aboriginal "internal reviewer" may conduct his "internal review" under the close direction of the senior officer whose behaviour the teacher is complaining about.
He will be allowed to speak to this officer.
The "internal review" written by a junior Aboriginal employee of the Department of Education may be described to the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) as an "independent investigation"
- which it certainly is not.
But that is what will be will be on the official records of the Crime and Misconduct Commission.
And CMC officers will be instructed not to respond to the classroom teachers' letters telling them about this or any other matter.
Etc. etc. etc.
