In NSW, a father is struggling to come to terms with the death of his son, who took his own life in August 2023.
Jason Woodhouse is asking the government to help him find out what happened to his son. He claims that the Education Department is refusing to give him access to the emails of his son.
During a community cabinet meeting in Orange, the distraught father explained how he had been fighting with the Education Department for over eight months to gain access to his son’s school-issued email account. He said he was concerned that the account had been used to establish external accounts.
Addressing the minister, the father asked about the government’s plan to monitor the emails of children. He also asked about the parents’ right to keep their children’s online activities away from the prying eyes of the education department. Car admitted that she couldn’t imagine what the family had been going through.
After listening to the concerns of the father, the minister said she would look into the matter and get in touch with the department secretary. She noted that the issue of the monitoring of emails was a major concern for parents in NSW.
Although she acknowledged that it was a concern for parents, the minister said that it was also important that the government did everything it could to ensure that the safety of children was protected online. This includes monitoring the activities of students in school-owned forums.
The minister noted that the issue of online safety was a major concern for everyone, including herself. She said that the government had to do everything it could to monitor what was happening online, particularly in the school-owned forums.