Teacher Bullying in Queensland Schools - The Bad Apple Bullies Blog.

Letter to David Solomon : Page 1.

Dr David Solomon AM, Chair,

FOI Independent Review Panel,

GPO Box 5236, Brisbane,

Queensland 4001

March 6, 2008

Dear Dr Solomon,

Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission in relation to the administration of Freedom of Information in Queensland.

I hope that the Independent Review Panel will not allow themselves to be abused as puppets to destroy Queenslanders' rights to Freedom of Information.

Freedom of Information can sometimes seem to be the only Queensland government "accountability process" that is functioning.

Without the right to Freedom of Information, Queensland teachers and other Queensland public servants would have no workplace rights.

There would be no accountability in Queensland.

Queensland teachers and other public servants would be even more exposed to workplace abuse.

Freedom of Information enables Queensland teachers who are dealing with workplace abuse to -

• Find out if the official records of their complaint about workplace abuse have been falsified.

• Find falsified "official records" that have been secretly placed on their Departmental files.

• Find details of internal and external "investigations" concerning them that have been conducted without their knowledge.

• Realise that what was represented to them as an "investigation" may not have been described as an "investigation" in the official records.

• Read "Briefings for the Minister" and gain an understanding of the strategies used by public servants to avoid "knowing" about public service workplace bullying, harassment, victimisation, discrimination and victimisation or "payback".

• Identify the Department of Education officers who have made untruthful statements to them and about them.

(If you can't see the rest of this letter, please click on March 2008 archives at the right hand side of this web page.)

Letter to David Solomon Page 2:

Why I made a Freedom of Information application in September 2003.

In 2000 I was employed as a specialist teacher in a Queensland State School.

Groups of Grade 7 children at the school were missing from their classrooms, roaming unsupervised around the school.

I discussed my concerns about the situation with the acting principal of the school.

The acting principal advised me to speak about it to the staff at the next staff meeting.

She put it on the agenda for the meeting.

But, directly before I spoke, the acting principal spoke to the staff at some length about "a person" on the staff who was humiliating children.

One of the other teachers later told me that I was this "person".

The shock of the acting principal's seemingly irrational and deeply unprofessional behaviour made me ill.

I was advised by the QTU, the staff welfare officer and two specialist advisory teachers to ask the principal for a mediated meeting.

At the meeting the acting principal told me that "a lot of allegations" had been made against me and that she had "lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened".

This statement was recorded by the acting deputy principal and secretly placed on my Department of Education official record.

Two days after this meeting the acting principal gave me a letter to advise me that she and the usual principal - who had not discussed the situation with me - had decided to put me into the Diminished Workplace Performance process the next year.

This letter was also placed on my official Department of Education file.

These letters remain on my Queensland Department of Education official record to this day.

Since September 2003 I have been making FOI applications for copies of the "lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened".

To this date I have not found any document that answers that description.

But I have found a loose scrap of paper on which the acting principal has scribbled that she made her statements to the staff concerning me because of allegations that were made concerning me in "notes to L---- (one of the Grade 7 teachers) from D-----".

These "notes to L---- from D-----" were never discussed with me at any meeting.

I knew nothing about them till I found a copy of this loose scrap of paper in FOI documents that were released to me on 27 October 2005.

I only know two people called D-----, and they have both assured me that they know nothing about this situation.

Letter to David Solomon Page 3:

To this date I have not been allowed Freedom of Information.

But I have established that my official Queensland Department of Education "records" have been extensively falsified.

Many of the falsified documents are described in detail at - http://badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm

My Freedom of Information applications are detailed at -

http://www.badapplebullies.com/freedomofinformation.htm

I anticipate that my experience will be the sort that is portrayed to you as a "problem with a vexacious applicant".

But I would suggest that it is not my applications for these missing "lot of allegations" in the "lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened" that is the problem.

It is the refusal of the acting principal to either produce these documents or to admit that there were no allegations against me, and to remove her offensive and deeply unprofessional letters to me from my official Department of Education files.

The problem is not the policies, it is the practices.

My Freedom of Information experience suggests to me that the real problem is not a problem with the official Department of Education policies, but with the abusive workplace practices of Department of Education administrators.

The bully administrator is able to establish inappropriate "mobbing bonds".

My own bully administrator managed to form inappropriate "mobbing bonds" with other administrators and even with Head Office staff, including -

• a very senior officer who was controlling the investigation into my complaint
• and also one officer who was involved in "searching" for my FOI documents.

I have found the documentary evidence of these inappropriate "mobbing bonds" in the FOI documents.

These inappropriate "mobbing bonds" have affected my FOI applications.

Letter to David Solomon Page 4:

Falsified "records" can be maliciously placed on a Queensland teacher's official files.

It is too easy for malicious and untruthful "records" concerning a teacher to be secretly placed on that teacher's Queensland Department of Education official files.

Notes on loose scraps of paper can be secretly placed on a teacher's file.

These loose scraps of paper can be introduced, changed or removed at any time by an abusive principal.

Queensland school principals have their own offices and their own computers. There is no excuse for keeping files of sticky-notes and loose scraps of paper "recording" their secret thoughts and feelings about teachers.

It is much too easy for a malicious principal to secretly place "records" of imaginary conversations with children, parents, other teachers, other principals and District Office staff concerning a teacher on that teacher's official Department of Education files.

If the teacher ever manages to find these documents under Freedom of Information, the names of the children, parents, etc. involved in these imaginary conversations will have been concealed, so the teacher has little chance to prove that their "official record" has been falsified.

The FOI policy of deleting all names from documents exposes Queensland teachers to workplace abuse. 

And then, even if the child, parent, teacher, principal of member of the District Office staff tells the teacher or an investigator that they did not have this imaginary conversation concerning the teacher, Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) officers will advise the teacher that the principal's "record" of their imaginary conversation is not a lie, it is a "different recollection".

So you can never, ever disprove a malicious principal's "different recollections".

Undated, unsigned scribbles on sticky-notes can be secretly placed on a teacher's file.

These scribbled notes may convey no clear meaning. They can be interpreted to suggest more or less anything.

These sticky-notes can be stuck on top of dated and signed "records" to create the false impression that the sticky-noted comments are related to that particular incident and that particular date.

And then the sticky-note can be moved to create a different impression.

Because the scribbles on the sticky-notes are undated and unsigned, nobody can be held responsible for the suggestions that are being created by the scribbled notes.

Similarly, unsigned and undated notes can be scribbled in pencil onto documents that have been written, dated and signed by another person.

This can create the false impression that the events described in the scribbled notes happened at the same time as the events in the original document.

Or "records" concerning the actions of another teacher may be carelessly / maliciously placed on your Department of Education file.

• All documents concerning teachers should be signed, dated and shown to teachers before they are placed on teachers' files.

• There should be space on the document for the teacher's response. A response should not be "attached" to the official record, because it could be too easily "lost".

• No document should be placed on a teacher's Department of Education file if the teacher concerned has not had the opportunity to respond to the document.

• There should be serious consequences for administrators who are in breach of this policy.

This simple strategy would have protected me from workplace abuse in 2000.

If this simple strategy had been in place in 2000, I would not have needed to make any Freedom of Information applications.

This simple strategy would improve professional conduct, protect Queensland teachers from workplace abuse, and save a lot of FOI time and money.

Letter to David Solomon Page 5:

Falsified 'records' of meetings can be secretly placed on a Queensland teacher's official file.

Records of meetings may be falsified to the disadvantage of teachers.

For example, a teacher's response to allegations may be 'edited out' of the official records.

Or the allegations may be changed.

And the names of the people making the allegations may be changed.

The teacher may not realise that the allegations have been changed for several years, till they receive copies of the "records' of the meeeting under freedom of Information.

A lot of the teacher's time and effort may have been wasted writing responses to allegations that have been changed.

The teacher may even find that they have been used as a puppet to do themselves harm. Falsified official records may secretly have been made of their own 'confessions', 'demands' or 'poor professinal conduct'.

Union organisers may also have been abused as puppets to hear / not hear / not be able to remember what happened at the meeting and to do the teacher harm.

QTU organisers seem to feel helpless to prevent this abuse because of the QTU policy that 'no help will be given to any member who is in conflict with another member'.

This QTU policy exposes Queensland teachers to workplace abuse.

A teacher may be given verbal assurances at a meeting which are the direct opposite of what is in the official records.

Or the teacher may find that events that take place immediately after a meeting make nonsense of the assurances that they were given at the meeting.

For example, a bully principal may be promoted, celebrated in Parliament House or given a special award a few days after such a meeting.

• All Queensland Department of Education meetings to discuss complaints should be tape-recorded and transcribed.

• A copy should be given to each meeting participant.

• This simple strategy would raise the standard of professional conduct and eliminate many workplace problems.

• It would also reduce the need for teachers to make FOI applications for falsified "meeting notes".

 

Letter to David Solomon Page 6:

Queensland Department of Education officers seem to deal with documents, letters and emails of complaint by 'losing' them or by instructing each other not to read them.

The standard of documentation of complaints / internal reviews / investigations by the Queensland Department of Education is appalling.

And it puts Queensland teachers at great risk of harm.

The Department of Education has a responsibility to protect employees from exposure to the risk of harm because of poor workplace practices.

The horror of the incompetence / dysfunction / corruption of the Queensland Department of Education Grievance / Investigation practices is beyond the powers of belief of any ordinary person.

I would suggest that this systemic dysfunction is the cause of many repeated Freedom of Information applications.

• If Department of Education officers documented their activities to a professional standard, professional conduct would be improved and less public time and money would need to be wasted responding to / avoiding responding to FOI applications.

My own experience of this dysfunction is described in detail at http://www.badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm

Letter to David Solomon Page 7:

The Queensland Department of Education 'investigation process' is dysfunctional.

Again and again, the person that you are complaining about (or a person under their close control, or a person who has a conflict of interest in the situation) is allowed to investigate your complaint about their own behaviour.

They then write a report "finding no evidence of" their own bullying.

All later decisions by other Queensland Government Departments are based on this first "finding".

Your letters of protest are disregarded.

When you make a Freedom of Infomation application for the documentation of the "investigation" of your complaint, all copies of this first "investigation" finding are "lost" by all Queensland Government Departments.

And the Premier and senior public servants agree that you have written a lot of letters and that they will not reply to your letters.

And so no Queensland public servant actually reads your letters.

Your letters are automatically filed.

When you write to protest that your official record has been extensively falsified, your letters are simply 'lost' or disregarded.

And no Queensland public servant can be held responsible for not reading your letters and not "knowing" that your official record has been falsified.

Because they were all instructed by the Premier and their senior officers not to read your letters.

Letter to David Solomon Page 8:

Strategies used by Queensland Department of Education Investigators / Reviewers.

An investigator may change the wording of your complaint to avoid investigating the real problem.

This seems to be a very common Queensland public service strategy.

Your complaint / grievance may have been falsified by being "lost".

The official record of a 120 page grievance can be reduced to three pages with this strategy.

An "internal reviewer" may simply copy from documents that he knows to be falsified.

He may have been instructed not to "consider" your responses to the falsified documents.

An "internal reviewer" may have been instructed not to ask questions and find out any facts.

He may have been instructed to "infer from the documents".

This gives the internal reviewer carte blanche to claim to have "inferred" more or less any nonsense from the documents, even if the evidence in the documents totally contradicts the "inference" drawn by the reviewer.

• The Department of Education practice of making "inferences based on the documents" is wide open to abuse. It should stop. 

Official "investigation reports" may be ambiguous and suggest several different meanings to different readers.

And what you are told at a "meeting to discuss the findings of the investigation" may be quite the opposite to the real findings of the investigation.

There may not even have been an investigation.

Letter to David Solomon Page 9:

The word "investigation" is used carelessly by senior officers of the Queensland Department of Education.

A phone call to a "mate" is not an investigation.

And it is unjust, abusive and deceptive for senior public servants to allow one of the people whose behaviour is the subject of a complaint to organise a tightly controlled "internal review" - which simply consists of -

• "drawing inferences" from falsified documents,
• refusing to allow any questions to be asked,
• refusing to allow the complainant's responses to the falsified documents to be considered

- and then for them to describe this very limited "internal review" in phone calls to other Government departments and in the official records as "an investigation".

I suspect that the careless use of the words, "we investigated it and found no evidence of ...", to describe poor professional practices is the cause of much wasted FOI search time.

I suspect that FOI officers are being asked to search for the documentation of "investigations" that were really little more than quick phone calls to a "mate". 

If Department of Education Education official reports were referenced to a professional standard - the standard expected of any university student, for example - it would improve accountability, discourage workplace abuse and greatly reduce the need to make repeated FOI applications for this documentation.

• The official records of an investigation should contain an accurate copy of the original complaint.

• Reference should be made to the specific document that supports any statement, finding, etc. made in internal review reports, investigation reports, Briefings for Ministers, etc.

• Department of Education officers who claim "I am told" or "I understand" something should be required to identify the documentary evidence that supports that claim.

This would discourage malicious gossip and mobbing, improve the quality of professional records and reduce the amount of time spent searching for FOI documents.

• A copy of all documentation that supports the findings of an investigation should be kept with the investigation report so that it cannot be "lost".

This simple strategy would -

• reduce the abuse of the Department of Education internal review / investigation / grievance / FOI processes to abuse teachers
• and reduce the time spent searching for "lost" FOI documents.

Letter to David Solomon Page 10:

There are problems with the Queensland Department of Education Freedom of Information (FOI) process.

The process takes many years.

I have been waiting since September 2003 for copies of the "lots of allegations" that the acting school principal stated on 27 November 2000 had been made against me in "lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened".

When a teacher first makes an FOI application, they know very little about the FOI process and it is easy for them to be bluffed out of their rights.

I now realise that my first application - FOI 2361 - was "personal" and that I should have been given the documents free of charge in late November 2003.

To this date I have not received these FOI documents, despite applying for them over and over again, and paying many application fees.

Several documents that existed in early 2004 have mysteriously vanished during the FOI process.

I have identified some of the documents that have vanished at http://www.badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm .

Several "investigation reports" also seem to have vanished.

Department of Education FOI officers have a practice of suggesting responses to officers who are being asked for documents.

They sometimes seem to suggest that respondents simply say that they can't find any documents.

Sometimes you suspect that the FOI officer did not even contact the officer concerned.

• All FOI searches should be conducted in writing, and all respondents should be allowed to respond in their own words, because this allows you to check that the FOI officer did actually search for the documents and that the documents that the FOI officers have "searched" for are the documents that you actually requested.

Sometimes Internal reviewers do not seem to search.

They just give you their opinions about the documents. Their comments may be misleading, but they know that they cannot be held responsible for their misleading response because they did not search and so they do not "know" that they are misleading you.

One Department of Education FOI officer wrote to me one day, accepting my application fee, then wrote to me the next day, refusing to search for the documents.

This is an unjust and abusive practice.

Some FOI documents are photocopied "half off the page" so that the number of the page / key words / key dates / key names are "edited out" of the photocopy that is provided to you.

So you have to re-apply for a full copy of the document.

Some FOI officers choose not to photocopy information concerning you on the original covers of folders, so that the fact that a Discipline file has been opened on you, for example, is concealed from you.

• The original covers of all folders should be photocopied and included in photocopies of FOI documents.

Department of Education FOI officers seem to be fairly low down on the head office 'pecking order'.

This may be the cause of some problems. For example, sometimes they have to ask their superior officers for FOI documents. This seems to be difficult for them.

And if the senior officer just says that he has lost all of his documents, it must be difficult for an FOI officer to tell them to "stop playing the fool and hand over the documents".

Documents related to bullying and mobbing should be provided to applicants free of charge under FOI.

Bullying and mobbing are not part of the official duties of a Queensland public servant. They are personal.

Documents that you produce in order to protect yourself from mobbing and bullying, and documents that you use as evidence of bullying and mobbing, are also personal.

And allowing a bully administrator to "investigate" his own behaviour and find "no evidence of bullying" is not evidence that this was not workplace bullying because "we have investigated your complaint lots of times and we have found no evidence of bullying".

It is evidence that the mobbing problem is systemic.

Two very senior Queensland Department of Education public servants responded to my FOI application by claiming to have lost all of their emails and letters to me and from me over a period of several months.

I presume that they lost all of their other official documents as well.

You may think that this is an appallingly dysfunctional way to run a Queensland Government department.

• There is an urgent need to raise the standard of record-keeping in the Queensland Department of Education. The present level of workplace dysfunction is a waste of public funds and it creates a psychopath-friendly working environment.

When I made my first FOI application, the files containing the mass of falsified documents were numbered backwards, so that the last page of the last document was number one, etc.

Many of these 'documents' were unsigned and undated. They were scribbled by hand on loose scraps of paper and sticky-notes.

They concerned events that I knew nothing about - I eventually realised that many were 'records' of entirely imaginary conversations with me, my students, parents, other principals and other administrators.

These 'records' were not shown to me or discussed with me at the time that they purported to have been written, and when I did eventually receive FOI copies of the documents, the names had all been 'edited out'.

There was no document that actually explained what was 'going on' at the school - why all of these falsified 'records' had been secretly placed on my official files. 

At least one of the documents seemed to have been substituted for the original document. Several documents 'vanished' during the FOI process.

All of this muddle made it really, really difficult for me to comprehend the situation and to develop any kind of concept of what had been 'going on' at the school and what missing documents I should look for.

The Freedom of Information problem here is not my behaviour in making 'vexatious' FOI applications for these missing documents.

The problem is my struggle to make sense of the deliberate falsification of my Department of Education records, and the careless indifference to my welfare and to professional record-keeping that senior officers of the Queensland Department of Education have demonstrated.

They have demonstrate no leadership on this issue.

Recent UNE research suggests that as many as 99% of teachers are bullied at work.

But the senior officers of the Queensland Department of Education do not seem to care about this sort of teacher abuse, and so nobody else cares.

Letter to David Solomon Page 11:

Senior officers of the Queensland Department of Education seem to abuse Human Rights and Equal Opportunity-trained "discrimination solicitors" and Aboriginal employees "in training" to facilitate discrimination and workplace abuse.

If you make a complaint about discrimination, and a Queensland Department of Education Human Rights and Equal Opportunity-trained "discrimination solicitor" is employed to conduct an internal review of your FOI application, and then quite a lot of your documents vanish during this process, you might suspect that this Human Rights and Equal Opportunity-trained discrimination solicitor is being employed / abused by the Department of Education to facilitate discrimination by losing the evidence of discrimination.

And if the employee chosen to "review" your complaint is an Aboriginal "trainee" with no qualifications in psychology, law or education, and if he is asked to "review" a mass of falsified "records" that have secretly been placed on your Education Queensland files, and if he is instructed that he cannot ask any questions to find out the facts, and if he is not given all of your documents, and if he is instructed / persuaded to ignore your responses to the falsified "records" - you might think that this Aboriginal employee is being abused.

And if you have spent ten years of your life studying to get two good degrees from prestigious universities, and if you have been inspected for a whole day in NSW and placed on the First Primary Promotion List, and if your health and your career are then destroyed in Queensland by an inexperienced and incompetent administrator with malicious gossip and sticky-notes, and if your complaint about this utterly dysfunctional "decision-making process" is given to an Aboriginal employee "in training", who has no qualifications in law, psychology or education - you might also think that you are being abused.

Letter to David Solomon Page 12:

Some Office of the Information Commissioner, Queensland, (Infocomm) policies and practices seem to facilitate workplace abuse.

Infocomm officers demand that you prove that a document exists before they will search for it.

But under FOI I have found -

• huge numbers of falsified 'records' that have been secretly placed on my Queensland Department of Education files to my disadvantage.
• many references to 'lost' investigation reports.
• and my own documents have been extensively falsified.

In an environment of this nature - where my documents have been so very extensively falsified over such a long period of time - asking me to 'prove' the existence of documents is ridiculous.

Infocomm officers need to appreciate that teachers who have been abused at work - and recent UNE research suggests that as many as 99% of teachers are bullied at work - are not dealing with reality, logic or facts.

They are dealing with extensively falsified 'official records'.

Anything is possible.

You may not discover a reference to a lost / missing / falsified document for several years.

Then an FOI is released which makes reference to the earlier document.

When you apply to the Office of the Information Commissioner for a copy of this lost / missing / falsified document, Infocomm officers refuse to search for it because they have already closed down their external review for the period of time during which the lost / missing / falsified document seems to have been created.

• You should be able to ask for a document, the existence of which has been concealed from you, even if you do not find evidence of the existence of the document till after the external review for that period of time has been declared closed.

Infocomm officers "authorise" Queensland Department of Education FOI officers to release documents to you.

They refuse to send the documents to you themselves.

These are documents that the Department of Education FOI officers have refused to release to you at least twice previously.

Infocomm officers advise you to contact the Department of Education FOI officers and apply to them for the documents again. But the documents that the Department of Education FOI officers eventually send to you may not be the same as the documents that the Infocomm officers have 'authorised' them to release to you.

This seems to be an organised 'cop-out' strategy by Infocomm Officers. They do not seem to want to be responsible for 'knowing' that the right documents are not being released to you.

When you point out that the documents released to you have been falsified, Infocomm and the Department of Education officers then enter into long and improbable explanations to each other and to you of how these changes came about.

This all seems to be an absolute waste of time.

And it facilitates the endless falsification of your FOI documents.

• The Office of the Information Commissioner Queensland should release documents directly to applicants.

Letter to David Solomon: Page 13

Queensland Department of Education FOI officers and Office of the Information Commissioner, Queensland officers seem to employ abusive strategies to avoid searching for documents.

The "No Fishing Allowed" strategy.

There can be a very significant difference between the search response reported to you by an internal reviewer and the actual words written by the person whose documents are being "searched". An FOI applicant needs to make a second FOI application for the documents that record the "search" conducted by the internal reviewer to find out whether the internal reviewer has searched for the correct documents and reported his findings accurately.

The "Can We Deal With Your Second FOI Application First?" strategy.

In this disgracefully abusive strategy the FOI / Infocomm officer asks you if you will wait for your first FOI documents till a second, "broader" FOI application is finalised. They advise you that the first FOI documents may "turn up" in response to the second application.

You agree to wait.

Big, big mistake.

You wait for years.

No work is done on the second FOI application for months. The first FOI documents that you asked for do not "turn up" in response to the second application.

Five years later the FOI / Infocomm officers are still refusing to search for the first documents that you asked for.

And, in the meantime, public servants promote each other, change jobs or retire and the likelihood of the first documents ever being found is hugely reduced.

The "Two-Stage-Release" strategy.

In this strategy the FOI officer "allows" you to have a copy of an email from the bully administrator in which certain statements are made.

Then, months later, a second email is found. It appears to have been sent later on the same day as the first email - but who would really know? - In this second email significant changes are introduced into the Departmental "story".

Or

Version 2 of The "Two-Stage-Release" Strategy.

In version 2 of this strategy, a file of falsified documents is released. The target responds to these falsified documents. Months later a second file containing many of the same documents is released. But this file has been significantly re-organised and undated, unsigned, handwritten notes have been made on the original documents, introducing significant changes to the official "story".

The "Am I Understanding You Correctly?" strategy.

This Infocomm strategy is really draining and it can be used to delay your external review application for as long as a year. It consists of re-writing the applicant's external review application so that it is unrecognisable, then asking the applicant to confirm within the next eight days that this is the application that they are making or they will lose all of their FOI rights.

The external review applicant then has to "drop everything" and struggle for hours to find any relationship between their own original application and this strange document.

Finally the external review applicant comes up with Hybrid Version 2 of their own application. They mail it off and hear nothing for months. They receive no documents.

Suddenly yet another unrecognisable version of their external review application arrives. And again they are asked to confirm in the next eight days this is the application that they want to make or they will lose all of their FOI rights.

Again the external review applicant has to "drop everything" and work for hours, comparing their own original application with this unrecognisable document.

Finally they come up with Hybrid Version 3 of their external review application. They mail it off and again hear nothing for months.

Finally one or two documents arrive.

• This continual re-writing of applications must consume a lot of the time of the FOI and Infocomm officers. I would respectfully suggest that Infocomm officers consider simplifying the external review process for the applicant, be more accepting of layman's concepts and original language, and thereby reduce their own workload.

Actually, I think that the Infocomm officers are so highly qualified that they genuinely do not appreciate the demands that the FOI process makes on the skills of an ordinary person. They can become a little 'snappy' and impatient with the bumbling efforts of applicants at times.

I have a good Master's degree in linguistics and I have found making FOI applications demanding.

It must be very, very difficult for anybody who is less literate or who has less time.

Letter to David Solomon Page 14:

The Queensland public service promotion system seems to be psychopath-friendly.

The Department of Education promotion system, for example, favours glib talkers who 'interview well'.

Psychopaths are glib talkers.

Glib talkers may not really comprehend the words that they are babbling. They may not apply their words to their own behaviour. They may not comprehend what other people say to them. They may not be willing readers or writers.

When faced with a problem, gib talkers may not bother to read the official Department of Education policies related to their problem.

They may just ring somebody at the District Office and ask for their advice.

This 'verbal advice seeking' is a waste of the time of the District Office staff.

It also functions as a grooming strategy.

The advice given by District Officers is based on the glib talker's version of the situation. if a Grievance is later made about the consequences of the advice, the District Office staff will be compromised and may feel obliged to protect the glib talker who followed their advice.

• There is a need for teachers who are seeking promotion to demonstrate an understanding of the Department of Education official policies before they are appointed to 'acting' positions.

By this I mean some sort of written test that teachers seeking promotion have read the official Department of Education policies, understand the policies, and can apply the policies.

If a teacher is not willing to read the Department of Education policies and to demonstrate a basic understanding of the policies, they should not be considered for promotion.

• Then, when appointed to a promotion position, they should be expected to follow the policies and to be accountable for their own actions.

• District office staff should not become involved in giving 'advice' on policies over the phone. This is a waste of time and public funds. It also facilitates workplace abuse.

At the very most District officers should refer principals to the relevant policy documents.

Letter to David Solomon: Page 15 : Last page.

Problems with the Queensland public service promotion system are impacting on Freedom of Information.

My experience suggests to me that the Labor Party is vulnerable to people who join the Party because it is a quick and easy way to gain rapid public service promotion.

Joining the Labor Party seems to be a quicker and easier way for Queensland public servants to gain promotion than studying for a Master's degree in Education, Administration or Law. And much quicker than making the effort to read the official policies of their department.

Some public servants who are members of the Labor Party seem to be very rapidly promoted.

And their inexperience and incompetence may render the Queensland public service dysfunctional and put other Queensland public servants at risk of workplace harm or abuse.

Members of Parliament who are on the Committee that selects a new Information Commissioner should carefully consider whether they have a conflict of interest in the situation.

If their husband, their husband's boss and their campaign manager are all the subject of current external review by the Office of the Infomation Commissioner, Queensland, and if one of the people being considered for the position is the wife of their husband's boss, then that Member of Parliament may consider that they have a conflict of interest.

And if you are the person searching for these documents, and if you find that your documents are not searched for and not found, you might also consider that there was a conflict of interest in this appointment.

Yours Sincerely,

(Name and contact details given in original letter.)

Webmaster, Bad Apple Bullies

At the bottom of this letter to David Solomon I attached a list of documents that should have been released to me free of charge in late November 2003.

The list can be found at -

http://www.badapplebullies.com/freedomofinformation.htm

Freedom of Information in Queensland.

I want to make a submission to David Solomon, the Chairman of the Independent Review Panel that is investigating Freedom of Information in Queensland.

So I have been working on some new pages for the Bad Apple Bullies website:

www.badapplebullies.com/freedomofinformation.htm

On that page I describe my own experience of making a Freedom of Information application.

At the bottom of each section I am developing a list of conclusions that I was able to draw from that particular FOI application process.

For example - I learned from my first FOI application that the FOI officers can change the wording of your application so that they do not have to search for the documents that you want. Then, however many times you write to them and tell them that the wording is wrong, they ignore you.

It has been really interesting looking through the first stages of my FOI application. You "see" a lot more than you saw at the time.

Actually the Freedom of Information process is pretty well the only Queensland Public Service "process" that functions to any extent at all.

With Freedom of Information we can hold Queensland Ministers and public servants accountable for their "processes" of carefully "not knowing" and not taking responsibility for dealing with problems.

So let's hope the current inquiry does not render Freedom of Information as useless as the rest of the Queensland Government "official processes".

I have also been working on -

www.badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm

Which details the many ways in which the documents on your official record can be falsified.

For example - if you make a complaint to the Director-General, departmental officers can just throw away all but the first three pages of your complaint.

Then they base all of their "decisions" about your complaint on those three pages.

You don't realise what is "going on" till you make a Freedom of Information Application.

And then, just before you receive your FOI documents, the Premier and the senior public servants all agree that nobody will read your letters complaining that your documents have been falsified.

When I finish writing my submision to the FOI inquiry I will publish it here.

So that it can't be secretly reduced to three pages.

I know that trick now.

(You can read my letter to David Solomon if you click on "March 2008 archives" on the right hand side.)

Media Release: Ban Bullying at Work Day: Wednesday 7 November 2007

Media release: 

Queensland Teachers easily bullied out of work.

Ban Bullying at Work Day will be celebrated in England on Wednesday 7 November.

What will we celebrate in Queensland?

In schools and district Offices all over Queensland, Education Queensland administrators can quietly celebrate how very easy it is to bully Queensland teachers into ill health and out of work.

 

My advice to any Queensland teacher who is dealing with workplace bullying would be - go directly to a solicitor as soon as the bullying begins.

The Education Queensland "official processes" are utterly dysfunctional and your health and your career can easily be destroyed in a couple of days with malicious gossip and sticky-notes.

On 23 June 2002 I met Anne Bligh, Minister of Education, and Jim Varghese, Director-General of Education.

I told them that the Queensland Teachers' Union had advised me that there was systemic abuse of the Diminished Work Performance process (now called Managing Unsatisfactory Performance Process).

And that when a Queensland teacher was bullied at work, the union's only advice was that there was no hope of justice and to "accept the things you cannot change".

Anna Bligh already seemed to know more about the situation than I did -

On 3 November 2000 I was working as a specialist teacher in a Queensland state school.

I asked the acting principal to support me in saying that too many children were missing from the Grade 7 classrooms.

Unsupervised groups of Grade 7 children were roaming about the school, disrupting other classes.

The acting principal advised me to discuss the situation at a staff meeting.

She put it on the agenda for discussion at the staff meeting.

But at the start of the staff meeting, the acting principal made certain statements concerning me to the staff.

Five years later, in November 2005, after many, many Freedom of Information applications, I discovered some scribbled notes on a loose scrap of paper.

In these scribbled notes, the acting principal claimed that she had made the statements concerning me to the staff because of allegations made about me in "notes to Leigh from Desley".

The allegations made by Desley must have been serious because the acting principal stated on the loose scraps of paper that "I further said that as far as I was concerned, humiliating students was a disciplinary offence by teachers."

(2421 F 39-40, 2733 F 24-25)

I was deeply shocked by what seemed to me to be the irrational and unprofessional conduct of the acting principal at the staff meeting.

The shock of her behaviour made me ill.

I sought advice on how to deal with the acting principal's seemingly irrational behaviour.

I was advised by the union, the staff welfare officer, my doctor and two specialist advisory teachers to ask for a mediated meeting with the acting principal.

During the mediated meeting the acting principal "stated that there were a lot of allegations, and that she had lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened."

(2421 F 31, 2733 F 32, notes made by acting deputy principal and concealed from me till after 27 April, 2004)

Two days after the mediated meeting  I was given a letter to advise me that both the acting principal and the usual principal (who was on leave and had not discussed the situation with me) had decided that I would be in a punishment program (the "Diminished Work Performance program") the next year.

But no mention was ever made to me of Desley or of her allegations.

To this day Education Queensland refuse to explain who Desley is or what her allegations were.

This utterly irrational decision-making process is described in detail at http://www.badapplebullies.com/investigations.htm

The decision to punish me was clearly made in breach of Natural Justice, the DWP process, the Education Queensland Code of Conduct and the Public Service Regulations.

But, to this day, Education Queensland refuse to strike the decision off my Departmental record.

The shock of the bullying, the threats, and the advice that there was no hope of justice had made me ill.

I discovered that I had a hearing loss and I very gratefully accepted ill health retirement in July 2002.

At the time of my retirement I was repeatedly assured that the bullying was under control.

I believed these assurances and I was very relieved that the situation had been resolved "informally".

But then I began to realise that I had been tricked.

On 26 February 2003, I sent an email to Peter Beattie, explaining what was "going on", and that the situation involved local members of the Labor party.

I described the significant conflict of interest that was affecting the District Office investigation of my complaint.

On 29 June 2003 I sent the email to Peter Beattie again.

The Public Service Commissioner still has a copy of my emails to Peter Beattie.

(You can see them at the bottom of OPS 70524 FOLIO 23.)

On 16 October 2003 Peter Beattie, Rachel Hunter, Jeff Loof and George O'Farrell all signed a "Chief of Staff briefing note".

They all agreed that I had written a lot of letters and that they were not going to respond to my letters.

There is no mention in the "Chief of Staff briefing note" of what my letters were actually about.

It is a pretty amazing thing to hold in your hand such a document, signed with a big swirling signature by Peter Beattie, the Premier who once said that any Queensland public servant who was being bullied should write to him.

On November 18, 2006 I wrote to pretty well all of the Directors-General in Queensland, sending them a list of all of the falsified "records" that I had found hidden in my files.

Many of these "official records" were little more than scribbles on a jumble of undated, unsigned, loose scraps of paper and sticky-notes.

They seem to "record" imaginary conversations with me or concerning me.

Many of my documents "vanished" during the Freedom of Information process.

During the year since I wrote to the Directors-General, Education Queensland seem to have been involved in a "process" of carefully doing nothing whatsoever.

On November 23 2006 I spoke to Ken Smith.

He advised me to write to Rachel Hunter, explaining what I wanted.

I wrote to Rachel Hunter and explained that -

I want to know what the allegations were in the "notes to Leigh from Desley".

I want to see copies of the "lot of allegations" in the "lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened".

I want to have the opportunity to respond to these allegations, and to prove myself innocent.

And I want all copies of

• the decision to punish me and
• the decision to dismiss my complaint about the abuse of the DWP process

marked to acknowledge that these two decisions were made in breach of Natural Justice, the DWP process, the Education Queensland Code of Conduct and the Public Service Regulations, (and, in the case of the second document, the Education Queensland Grievance process) and that these two decisions have been officially "struck off" my departmental record.

If all copies of these two documents are marked in this way, I will not make any claim for compensation for the seven years that I have wasted waiting for Education Queensland to complete their utterly incompetent "official processes".

I won't feel "satisfied".  On the contrary, I will feel that Education Queensland are appalling employers.

But I will gladly forgo all compensation if Education Queensland will finally admit that a "mistake" was made seven years ago.

My good name means a lot to me.

(Name and contact details provided.)

Webmaster of Bad Apple Bullies

http://www.badapplebullies.com/investigations.htm

Copied to:

Mr Ken Smith, Director-General, Department of the Premier and Cabinet,     premiers.master@premiers.qld.gov.au

Ms Rachel Hunter Director-general, Department of Education, Tel 323 71070    rachel.hunter@qed.qld.gov.au

Mr Rod Welford, Minister of Education,    educationandarts@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Mr Brad Swan, Director-General (Acting), Department of Child Safety, Tel: 322 47052   brad.swan@childsafety.qld.gov.au

Ms Linda Apelt, Director-General, Department of Communities, Tel 323 54312    dgoffice@disability.qld.gov.au

Mr Frank Rockett, Director-General, Department of Corrective Services, Tel 323 93929    frank.rockett@dcs.qld.gov.au

Mr Barry Leahy, Director-General (Acting), Department of Employment and Industrial Relations,    TTEIR@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Ms Uschi Schreiber, Director-General, Queensland Health, Tel 323 41171    uschi_schreiber@health.qld.gov.au

Ms Julie Grantham, Director-General (Acting), Department of Justice and Attorney-General,    mailbox@justice.qld.gov.au

Mr Bob Atkinson APM, Commissioner of Police, Queensland Police Service, Tel 336 44391   commissioner@police.qld.gov.au

Mr Jim Varghese, Director-General, Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Tel 323 93020    jim.varghese@dpi.qld.gov.

Mr Robert Needham, Chairperson, Crime and Misconduct Commission,Tel 336 06060    mailbox@cmc.qld.gov.au

Ms Rachael Rangihaeata, Acting Information Commissioner, Tel 300 57151  administration@oic.qld.gov.au

Mr David Bevan, Queensland Ombudsman, Tel 300 57000    ombudsman@ombudsman.qld.gov.au

Mr James Purtill, Public Service Commissioner, Tel 322 42415    james.purtill@opsme.qld.gov.au

info@workcoverqld.com.au

members@qpsu.org.au

info@qcu.asn.au

State Members of Parliament

Julie Attwood ALP     Mount.Ommaney@parliament.qld.gov.au

Veronica Barry ALP     Aspley@parliament.qld.gov.au

Anna Bligh ALP     thepremier@premiers.qld.gov.au

Chris Bombolas ALP     Chatsworth@parliament.qld.gov.au

Desley Boyle ALP       trdi@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Michael Wai-Man Choi ALP     Capalaba@parliament.qld.gov.au

Peta-Kaye Croft ALP        Broadwater@parliament.qld.gov.au

Andrew Fraser ALP       treasurer@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Margaret Keech ALP       childsafety@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Paul Lucas ALP        deputypremier@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Andrew McNamara ALP      sustainability@ministerial.qld.gov.au

John Mickel ALP        TTEIR@ministerial.qld.gov.au
Tim Mulherin ALP        dpi@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Lindy Nelson-Carr ALP      CandDS@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Warren Pitt ALP         mainroads@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Neil Roberts ALP          emergency@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Stephen Robertson ALP         health@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Robert Schwarten ALP      pwh@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Kerry Shine ALP        attorney@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Judy Spence ALP        police@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Craig Wallace ALP         NRW@ministerial.qld.gov.au

Stuart Copeland NPA       Cunningham@parliament.qld.gov.au

Fiona Simpson NPA   maroochydore@parliament.qld.gov.au

Andrew Cripps NPA       Hinchinbrook@parliament.qld.gov.au

Elizabeth Cunningham IND       Gladstone@parliament.qld.gov.au

Steve Dickson LIB        kawana@parliament.qld.gov.au

Glen Elmes LIB        noosa@parliament.qld.gov.au

Bruce Flegg LIB        bruce.flegg@opposition.qld.gov.au

John-Paul Langbroek LIB     surfers.paradise@parliament.qld.gov.au

Mark McArdle LIB      caloundra@parliament.qld.gov.au

Tim Nicholls LIB      clayfield@parliament.qld.gov.au

Ray Stevens LIB     robina@parliament.qld.gov.au

Jann Stuckey LIB     currumbin@parliament.qld.gov.au

Federal Members of Parliament

Kate.Ellis.MP@aph.gov.au

Ross.Vasta.MP@aph.gov.au

Arch.Bevis.MP@aph.gov.au

De-Anne.Kelly.MP@aph.gov.au

Peter.Dutton.MP@aph.gov.au

Alex.Somlyay.MP@aph.gov.au

Peter.Slipper.MP@aph.gov.au

Kevin.Rudd.MP@aph.gov.au

Ian.Macfarlane.MP@aph.gov.au

P.Neville.MP@aph.gov.au

Bob.Katter.MP@aph.gov.au

Warren.Entsch.MP@aph.gov.au

Wayne.Swan.MP@aph.gov.au

Bruce.Scott.MP@aph.gov.au

A.Downer.MP@aph.gov.au

Margaret.May.MP@aph.gov.au

Gary.Hardgrave.MP@aph.gov.au

J.Hockey.MP@aph.gov.au

Bernie.Ripoll.MP@aph.gov.au

T.Gambaro.MP@aph.gov.au

Michael.Johnson.MP@aph.gov.au

W.Truss.MP@aph.gov.au

Newspapers

The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/contactus

schools@theaustralian.com.au

The Melbourne Age:

newsdesk@theage.com.au 

The Daily Telegraph

news@dailytelegraph.com.au

The news.com.au group of newspapers:

http://www.news.com.au/storytip

http://www.news.com.au/contactus

The Courier-Mail: 

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/storytip

The Cairns Post:

http://www.cairnspost.com.au

Look on the left hand side for "Let Us Know", then go to "News Tips".

The Sunshine Coast Daily:

http://www.thedaily.com.au/contact_us/

The Gold Coast Bulletin

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/gold-coast-bulletin/contact-us-form.html?about=1

TV News:

A Current Affair

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/feedback/default.aspx?formid=228&_cobr=optus

The 7:30 Report

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/contact.htm

Today Tonight

http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/contactform/30607

http://www.banbullyingatwork.com/

Teachers are bullied into ill health and out of work.

I read in the Melbourne Age today that, from next year, more than 100 full-fee university degrees will cost more than $100,000.

I want to send a message to any Queensland student thinking of studying education, particularly those innocent characters who have OP 2's and "have always wanted to be a teacher".

• 50% of all teachers get out of teaching after five years. So you are buying something that you will have to pay for even if you only want to use it for five years.
• You will be paid the same as someone with an OP 19. So you are selling a valuable asset too cheaply.
• And an OP 19 is much more likely to be promoted than you because they are so dim and easy to manipulate.
• Then the OP 19 will be able to put you on "Managing Unsatisfactory Performance" (a two year punishment program) if you try to do your job properly and deal with child abuse, behaviour problems, etc. 
• Education Queensland will allow the OP 19 to punish you until you agree to think and behave like an OP 19.
• Your union will tell you that nothing can be done about workplace bullying because the grievance process does not work.
• Your principal (and even some of the senior Departmental officers) will be in the same union as you and so their behaviour will be described as a "member versus member issue" and you will not be entitled to legal advice.
• And nobody in the Queensland Government will read your letters of complaint. They will just ring each other up and assure each other that they have investigated your complaint and found no evidence of bullying.
• Then they will all change jobs so that none of them can be held accountable.
• The horror of the situation - of gradually realising that everybody in the Queensland public service is going to "misunderstand", "not know" and "lose" your complaint about the bullying - will affect your health. The stress will make you ill. And you will be forced out of work. And you will be glad to go.

Is this really the life that you want?

Only OP 19's are really safe in Queensland schools.

Classroom teachers need more support.

Michael Duffy has written an article in The Sydney Morning Herald today "State Schools slowly waking from nightmare".

One line in the article is really disturbing:

... Another important initiative has been to introduce better ways for principals to deal with dud teachers. ...

Mr Duffy, the problem is not "dud" teachers.

I worked in schools in New South Wales and Queensland for thirty one years as a teacher, specialist teacher and advisory teacher. I worked with many teachers over those years. I can honestly say that I never met a "dud" teacher, and it really upsets me to hear teachers denigrated in this way.

I did, however, meet many "dud" principals.

I did not meet any in NSW, but when I moved to Queensland the "dud" quota rose astronomically.

I also met some pretty brilliant principals.

The principals working on the Torres Strait islands really impressed me. They were mostly young men, working in quite a strange environment, with many problems with a lack of resources, etc. But they were mostly doing a brilliant job - and having a great time too.

The principals in the remote communities were also doing a difficult job. They seemed stressed. I thought that their "performance" was probably affected by the lack of access to good, fresh food. You can't really be at your best if the only fruit and vegetables available in the shops are rotten.

And then there were the others.

Why were they so very "dud"?

My impressions were:

• There is a huge need for principals of small schools in Queensland. So young teachers were being very rapidly promoted. Because they had so little experience of different styles of management, they did not really know how to manage. I particularly noticed that staff meetings were very, very boring. Staff meetings in NSW schools had been much more interesting and well organised.
• Principals are not necessarily being promoted because they are good at their job. There is a public service practice in Queensland that, when there is a problem with a public servant's work, you hold a ceremony, give them a special award and promote them.
• Some principals are not literate. One principal that I worked with had handwriting that could not be read, he could not spell, he did not understand the meaning of words, he could not construct a sentence or a paragraph that conveyed any clear meaning - and he "did not know what he did not know". He often told me proudly that he could not tell the difference between a teacher with a higher degree and a teacher with only a first degree. And I believed him.
• The Queensland Teachers' Union includes both teachers and principals - so both the workers and their bosses are in the same union.
• But school principals also have principals' associations - both primary and secondary.
• These principals' associations regularly launch attacks on classroom teachers, blaming them for the problems in schools. I suppose the associations do that to deflect blame from their members. The associations have the ear of the federal Minister of Education and she parrots what the associations are telling her about teachers.
• And the press - including Mr Duffy - also parrot what the Minister and the principals' associations say in their regular press releases.
• So classroom teachers are regularly denigrated in the public domain.
• Classroom teachers do not have "associations" to speak up in their defence. They only have their unions. But the Queensland Teachers' Union - and other unions, I suppose - do not speak up in defence of classroom teachers, because that would offend their school principal members.
• And public service rules prevent classroom teachers from speaking out in their own defence.
• 97.5% of teachers in a recent survey reported that they had been bullied at work.
• Another recent survey reported that classroom teachers had an overwhelming feeling of sadness.

Mr Duffy, classroom teachers are not "duds". The huge majority are sincere people, working hard in amazingly difficult circumstances. Please stop "putting them down".

And tell your friends.

http://www.badapplebullies.com/

How do Queensland Department of Education "investigations" take seven years?

When I first asked the local District Director to investigate the bullying I was 53. Now I am 60 and the Department of Education still haven't finished investigating!

How can it possible take so long to find out why the acting principal and the usual principal (who was on leave at the time) decided that would I "have to be" punished in 2001?

Well, at first I could not believe that the "usual" principal had really agreed that I "had to be" punished. I trusted the usual principal and respected him absolutely. He had persuaded me to stay at the school in 2000, although I had actually applied for a transfer because of my concerns about the aggressive behaviour of the deputy principal (who later became the acting principal bully). The usual principal had assured me that he would deal with the problems at the school. He promised me this and that. So I agreed to stay on. How could this man possibly have agreed, one year later, that I "had to be " punished? It did not make sense to me and so I concluded that he had been manipulated and lied to by the acting principal bully.

It was a very difficult situation for me to deal with because several of the key figures involved in the bullying were active members or supporters of the Labor party. And I was a member of the Labor party. When you join the Labor party you have to sign a sort of oath to say that you will never do anything to harm the party. It is hard to remember how innocent I was six and a half years ago. I took that oath very seriously. The bullying took place during the run-up to the February 2001 state election. In late 2000 it looked like Labor might lose the election. I was very anxious not to create any problems for the local members at such an important time. So I tried to deal with the situation informally.

At the time of my retirement in July 2002 the District Director assured me that he had the bullying under control. I trusted and respected him absolutely. I accepted his word. It did seem odd that the acting principal bully was given a whacking great promotion a couple of days later, but I presumed that the District Director was separating the people involved in the bullying. One of the $50,000 "career change" grants was being offered at Christmas 2002, and I expected that the acting principal bully would quiety take one of the grants. But no! The acting principal bully's whacking great promotion was confirmed! That was when I realised that I had been comprehensively tricked. I flew down to Brisbane and spoke to the Ombudsman and the Director of Human Resources.