Michael Regan MP's contribution to the Second Reading Debate on this Bill:

I contribute to debate on the Education Amendment (School Community Safety) Bill 2026 and its potential impact on parents and carers advocating for neurodivergent students and children with a disability. Recently I wrote to the Minister on behalf of those parents and teachers, whom I am working closely with, which I want to put on record. It reads:

I strongly support protecting teachers, staff and students from threatening, abusive and genuinely unreasonable behaviour. Teachers deserve to feel safe at work, and schools need effective powers to respond when conduct threatens that safety or seriously disrupts learning.

However, members of my Neurodivergent Support in Schools Working Group, the expert stakeholders and numerous Wakehurst constituents have raised concerns that persistent disability advocacy could be mistaken for aggression, harassment or vexatious conduct.

We know families of neurodivergent students often have greater contact with schools because they are seeking reasonable adjustments, behaviour support, incident information or the implementation of agreed learning plans. I also understand when concerns remain unresolved, parents may repeatedly request meetings, lodge complaints, escalate matters, or engage an advocate, or lawyer. These actions are not inherently unreasonable, and they often reflect a parent doing everything possible to secure their child's access to education.

I strongly believe families should not have to repeatedly escalate concerns or reach crisis points before their child receives needed support. We would like to see a broad implementation of best practice principles where schools clearly explain what support is in place, how its effectiveness is reviewed and how families can raise concerns and receive a timely response.

I share the concern that the proposed definition of unreasonable behaviour allows the frequency of communication to be considered while the Bill also refers to an unreasonable diversion of school resources Without clear safeguards, persistent advocacy arising from unresolved disability support needs could be mischaracterised as vexation or unreasonable complaining.

I acknowledge the protections already included in the Bill, including requirements that orders be the least restrictive available, that parents retain ways to communicate with schools and participate in decisions, and that the effect on a student's wellbeing and engagement be considered.

However, further consideration is needed to ensure the legislation gets the balance right. Neurodivergent children can depend heavily on their parents as their primary advocates. Restricting that relationship could leave the child more vulnerable while the underlying issue remains unresolved.

I therefore ask the Government to consider:

1.Explicitly confirming that disability advocacy, complaint-making, or seeking compliance with reasonable-adjustment obligations cannot by themselves constitute unreasonable behaviour.

2.Requiring decision-makers to consider the student's disability, the history of the family's concerns and whether agreed supports have been delivered.

3.Ensuring parents subject to an order retain meaningful involvement in their child's education.

4.Providing clear reasons, procedural fairness and accessible review rights.

5.Co-designing any Ministerial guidelines with people with a disability, families, advocates and educators, while monitoring any disproportionate impact on these families.

The Legislation Review Committee noted that the proposed Ministerial guidelines would address substantive matters affecting individual rights, despite there being no apparent requirement for the guidelines to be tabled in Parliament or subjected to parliamentary scrutiny. In light of this concern, I believe the core protections for legitimate disability advocacy should be established in the legislation itself, rather than left solely to Ministerial guidelines.

Whilst I agree with the spirit of the Bill with regards to protecting schools from genuinely threatening or abusive behaviour, I strongly believe that this Bill also needs to recognise that persistence is often necessary when a child's needs remain unmet. My hope is that we get the balance right and ensure that necessary persistence is not confused with harassment.

I thank the Minister for her positive engagement with me and my team, her sincere consideration and her ideas about what can be done in the legislation and for schools in general. Another suggestion, a simple thing that could be done, is to create and formalise a statewide subcommittee for neurodivergence in public schools, just as we have with the State P&C—a body of parents and teachers that could be feeding to the bureaucracy directly about neurodivergence in our public schools. It is an issue that we know is becoming more prevalent and is not going away. There are some good ideas that could be implemented. The teachers like it and the parents like it, so we should be using that experience with the bureaucracy, just as the P&C has successfully done for years. In short, I thank the Minister and her staff for the bill and what they have done by listening and acting. I commend the bill to the House.

Read this debate in the NSW Hansard here, or in PDF form below: