Tasmania's Education Department says it is confident sex offender teachers are not being protected in the system, but a lawyer probing historic cases is far from convinced.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Lawyer Sebastian Buscemi said he had evidence two former teachers who were jailed in recent years for historic sex offences against children were protected by the department when concerns about their behaviour arose.
He said he believed the treatment of at least 10 such teachers fitted the pattern of being shifted from school to school and/or job to job.
He is preparing civil claims for the Supreme Court.
Mr Buscemi said it was a vexed question whether the department was still protecting such teachers.
"I do not have evidence that the practice continues, but that in no way is evidence that it isn't," he said.
"History has shown that without accountability the risk to children remains.
"We also learnt from the Royal Commission (into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse) that it takes time for people to disclose childhood abuse, on average just over three decades, in fact.
"Without a strong inquiry, it is impossible to know though, especially given no one has been held to account over this."
He said he had a handful of cases that involved very recent abuse within the state's education system and that worried him.
"Crucially, I have not seen the measures and accountability that we know would prevent it from being an ongoing issue," he said.
EXTENSIVE POWERS
Mr Buscemi said an independent inquiry with extensive powers was needed, and the royal commission provided a good model.
"What an inquiry will need to look at is quite simple," he said.
"What was happening and why?
"An independent inquiry may expose some uncomfortable truths, but it's about time child safety took priority over the fear of what will be revealed."
Child safety activist and former Labor state minister Allison Ritchie suggested a parliamentary inquiry might be the best approach, saying the royal commission did not fully investigate the department's responses to actual and alleged sexual abuse of children by teachers.
NOT EXPECTED
However, the state government is not expected to initiate an inquiry.
Answering questions directed to Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff, including whether the government would initiate an inquiry into the department's past handling of paedophile teachers and alleged paedophile teachers, the department said: "No, because the (royal commission) has provided an exhaustive review of (institutional child sexual abuse), sitting for over five years and hearing from almost 17,000 people."
The department said it was well understood from the royal commission's findings that "grave abuses" had been committed against victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.
"The Tasmanian government supports the commonwealth's decision to make a national apology to those people and is working hard to implement the 409 recommendations in Tasmania to ensure all children are safe," it said.
The department said the government had already implemented changes to protect vulnerable people, including the introduction of registration to work with vulnerable people checks (RWVP).
"In (the department) in particular, all teaching and non-teaching staff who are undertaking duties and at work have RWVP and teaching staff also have registration with the Teachers Registration Board," it said.
"In addition, (the department) has undertaken and continues to do significant work in the child safety space, including work under the National Safe Schools Framework."
'A CLEAR PATTERN'
Hobart-based Mr Buscemi, of Angela Sdrinis Legal, likened the department's historic actions involving paedophile teachers to the Catholic Church's handling of paedophile priests.
"The patterns that exposed the Catholic Church's moving of priests around are extremely similar to those within the department," he said.
"Within both the church and department, there existed a clear pattern whereby an offender would be moved to a different location following allegations of abuse or growing community concern to the extent that it would be untenable to remain where they are.
"The big difference between the church and department though is the department wrote it down and seemingly made no effort to hide it.
"The church took steps to hide this, be it not making written records or limiting the amount of people who were aware of the practice.
"The department did not seem to share the church's concerns."
Mr Buscemi said why the department did not seem concerned about that was an important question.
"Whether or not this was because they had no reason to fear consequences is central to what needs to be examined," he said.