I have been dealing with issues to do with production of documents and allegations of bias, manipulation and corruption against a Government Department for many years and here are the isuses that I have found with FOI.

1. If you are seeking documents to shed light on processes and procedures undertaken by certain individuals you can rest assured that your FOI application will be given to them for them to ‘prepare’ the documents.

2. If you request that persons without a conflict of interest/duties produce documents you will be ignored.

3. If documents that are required by law to be kept are ‘not found’, ‘destroyed’ or ‘unable to be located’ and you have made allegations of tampering and manipulation NOBODY ever puts two and two together and questions what is going on and there is nowhere you can have your allegations investigated.

4. The Administrative Decisions Tribunal who deals with FOI applications does not have to power to do anything about anything. They do not even have the power to enforce their own orders.

5. The Ombudsman has discretion and he is paid by the Government so his job is to protect the reputation of the Government so he will not assist you if you are seeking records that might negatively impact on the reputation of the Government and put at risk his job. They can just deem a matter closed regardless of the evidence or even whether children are involved.

6. The Law abiding citizen has no rights, they are not entitled to procedural fairness or natural justice. It is the criminal who is protected. This puts our children at risk of harm. The Government is failing in its duty of care.

There needs to be changes made with regard to how issues like this are dealt with as there are no avenues for persons to have these types of allegations or complaints dealt with fairly and so those who abuse their power continue on their way hurting and destroying as they bully their way to the top.

Education – Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our children deserve better.

I agree with evrything that you have said..inhouse coverups and lies..
They had the hide to discuss my health internally and what rights do i have to correct this..none..would take more energy then I have..
I too am disgusted FOI yeh if your want rigged or not captured comments..
Yes the person I complained about did the report..
Regards
yvon52

yvon52. The whole process of dealing with complaints and matters in our Education system is designed to protect adults in power who are abusing children. I often wonder how the parents of young children in institutional care coped when their children told them they were being abused and they tried to protect their children and instead of those who were notified in the system helping the children they just turned it all around and defamed and blamed the parents and children and protected the abusers. The stress factor for the parents must have been extreme, not to mention what it would do to the kids. To watch your child being victimized, bullied, neglected or abused year after year and not be able to do anything to stop it, despite the fact that it is against the law, is very damaging to your health. Then of course when you speak out and the general public attacks you as though it is your fault for having spoken out -it makes you loose hope in the goodness of man kind.

I am going to fight this until I can fight no more and then if it isn't resolved properly and as per policy and procedure require, I will write a book. What I have learned about the system and the processes used is scary and people should know - I fear for the wellbeing of our children. There is no such thing as procedural fairness and natural justice for the innocent. All we have is protection for criminals and those who abuse their power. There are no equal rights.

This process t isn't limited to education.. Here are two links in relation to Health and in relation to Education wherein those involved have experienced the same 'process' and the similar things in relation to FOI and the handling of complaints..

http://www.badapplebullies.com/news.htm
http://whistleblowerssupportgroup.blogspot.com/

Is terrible... have read it several times and can only agree/

Only difference is to do with realizing this is wider than just the education department and child abuse, it is the behavior of most in authority to do what they want...

Only way around is legal, and most can not afford the lawyers, and guess who controls the "essential" legal representation..

Hi Polpak. Yes this is terrible but the problem is that not many people seem to care. Only two people commented on this thread when what this thread presents is a process of preparation of documents and FOI in relation to complaint and allegation handling that protects those who abuse children, the elderly, the disabled and pretty much anybody who is unlucky enough to come across the inept, incompetant and even evil people employed by our Government.

Governments in the past have become taken over by evil.

Within those employed in our Government there are pedophiles, psychopaths and abusers. In some countries the failure to deal with these evil people has been obvious and it happens because there is no process to weed out the criminals and those who fail in thier duty of care. In the end we get taken over by crime, it is already happening in Australia as the legal system is so lax on crime so as to protect those within the Government who are evil. The process of complaint handling works to promote those who do wrong so as to protect the reputation of the Government and to discredit those who complain. This is at a very high cost to the people.

In reality bullying malice and spite is not against the law so anybody who harms somebody on the basis of that is protected.

The Government is only interested in protecting themselves and those who work within it.

Jolanda
You have raised this issue before that is probably why two newer posters are the only ones to comment.

We can only agree with what you have said as before. You have to be willing to go to the media. If you have the facts and the documents to prove your statements, trust me they will run the story. The media thrives on these sorts of stories and in some ways, sadly they are the only recourse to those who are not in a financial position to go through the legal system.

Pelican yes I have said it before. And I will say it again and again until it is resolved.

One would think that when a system breaches Policy and Procedure and even the law and denies the public their rights and delays matter unfairly and unjustly and does not investigate and obstructs FOI that it wouldn't give them more power to cover the matter up. Unfortunatly it seems that it does.

It is not true that the media 'love' these stories, the media knows that I am telling the truth. The media is no different to anybody else, they know and are controlled by people in high places and they do not want to step on anybody's toes. They know that it could cost them their reputation and maybe even thier job.

At the end of the day my son should be sitting for Selective School placement soon for Year 7 2010 but he is not. My husband and I decided that he would not apply, even though he wanted to and his siblings said that he should. The Selective School System has won. My family will no longer apply for placement in any Public school.

Problem now is that the state records do not reflect the truth and they defame my children and my family and given that I have that right under FOI I will do everything in my power to ensure that the state records reflect the truth.