Audit on schools cover-ups withheld

REPORT outlining culture of cover-ups kept from the the public.

A damning report by KPMG that unearthed a culture of cover-ups within South Australian government schools has been kept from the public for seven months, even after its recommendations were accepted by the government.

The Education Department yesterday said the report, a draft of which was leaked to The Australian this week, was finalised in April and "a decision to implement the recommendations was made in May 2012".

The department has launched investigations into how the report was leaked. The final report has not yet been released by the government.

However, Education Minister Grace Portolesi, under intense pressure over the government's alleged involvement in the cover-up of the rape of an eight-year-old girl at a primary school, yesterday claimed "there is nothing hidden about this report".

"That report is being made public by the department as they have been in the process of progressing the implementation of the recommendations," she said at a news conference in Adelaide. "You need to acknowledge that in the process of the recommendations being progressed the report is being made available to unions and to third parties."

She said the issues raised in the report, and by the separate cover-up of the rape case, were "disturbing".

"A culture of secrecy is certainly not accepted in any government department, but especially one that has the education and care of children as its responsibility," Ms Portolesi said.

"I think the good thing is that this is out in the open and we are embracing that."

The report into the under-reporting of critical incidents in schools found a culture that suppressed bad news and kept police ignorant to protect reputations.

Scott Prasser, a professor of public policy at the Australian Catholic University and the executive director of the Canberra-based Public Policy Institute, yesterday said if the government really took the cover-up of the rape case as seriously as it said it did, then it would open a royal commission.

Ms Portolesi has conceded the rape case in a western suburbs primary school had continued to be covered up, despite her chief of staff Jadynne Harvey and the Premier's office being alerted to it in December 2010, until the opposition exposed it in parliament on October 30.

When it emerged last month that senior Weatherill government political advisers had been drawn into the alleged cover-up, Ms Portolesi commissioned former Supreme Court judge Bruce Debelle to conduct an inquiry.

Mr Debelle will not comment on his inquiry, but questions continued to be raised yesterday about his powers.

Professor Prasser said the inquiry was not taking statements on oath, there was no compulsion to answer questions and no power to subpoena documents or evidence.

"So what you've got is an inquiry but it hasn't got all the tools to do the job that perhaps people in South Australia think is needed," Professor Prasser said.