Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens recognise the difficulties faced by many young people in our schools across the country and the teaching staff in those schools. We recognise the problems associated with bullying. We recognise the mental health issues, the drug and alcohol abuse issues, and the behavioural problems and issues that occur in our schools. The Australian Greens believe it is appropriate that properly trained psychologists and guidance officers are deployed across our schools in order to deal with those issues in the appropriate way.

We recognise that many of the school chaplains being deployed under this program have no professional training whatsoever to deal with mental health issues, with behavioural problems and with the sorts of complex problems associated with drug and alcohol dependence and abuse, and we would urge the government to ensure that there is adequate funding for guidance officers and psychologists to be deployed across the education system to be able to perform this function.