Protect young students with disabilities

How can it be that an aide from Churchill Primary School caught on a recording threatening to hurt a child is still employed by the Victorian Department of Education, but the mother of the child is facing charges for recording the threats?

Skye Cooper took the desperate step of putting a listening device in her son’s clothing when he began coming home with bruising, and due to his disabilities could not explain why. 

How can the Department of Education not act, except against the mother, when the child at the centre of this cannot even verbally tell anyone what happens to him on a daily basis and needs protection?

The aide needs to go.

The Minister for Education Ben Carroll needs to take control of this situation, and force the Department of Education to act swiftly and give vulnerable children with disabilities their full protection. 

He also needs to lead a push for a change in the Surveillance Devices Act to enable parents to ensure their children are safe, if there is evidence indicating that child is being abused, without being charged by police. This is his responsibility, given the high levels of abuse of children with disabilities in Victorian government schools.