Jay’s education chief drops email bombshell
An email to education minister Jay Weatherill’s chief of staff informing him of the arrest of a school worker on sexual assault charges was sent just 15 minutes before Weatherill met with his COS and senior education department bureaucrats – but the matter was not raised at the meeting, according to evidence given to an Upper House inquiry today.
The email, which was one of the key issues examined in the Debelle Royal Commission, was sent by senior Education Department officer Jan Andrews to Weatherill’s chief-of-staff Simon Blewett in December 2010.
Justice Bruce Debelle found that Weatherill, who was education minister at the time, was not informed of the email by Blewett and fellow adviser Jadynne Harvey, who also received it.
The email detailed the arrest of an out of school hours worker at a western suburbs school. The worker was subsequently jailed for the sexual assault of a child under his care.
Gino DeGennaro, the acting chief executive of the department at the time, told the Parliamentary inquiry today that the email was sent to Blewett at 2.45pm – just 15 minutes before Blewett, Weatherill and DeGennaro had a regular meeting.
However, DeGenarro said the email and the substantive issue were not discussed at the meeting.
DeGennarro lost his position in the department a month ago in the wake of the Debelle royal commission findings – a move which he says shocked him.
“The CE (Tony Harrison) is entitled to make changes to the senior leadership structure of the department,” DeGennaro said today.
“However, when the CE determined that he did not have confidence in me … I was shocked. I believe that the evidence did not support this view and it was overly harsh.
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“I asked that consideration be given to transferring me in another role or agency. This was not taken up.
“We had a discussion, and the outcome of that was my contract ended and I left.”
When asked by committee member Robert Brokenshire: “Did he or didn’t he ask you to resign?”, DeGennaro answered: “I was left in a position where I had no choice.”
