Nice isn’t enough

I think Minister Jo Palmer is very presentable and credible. She handles the media well, communicates clearly, and avoids the kind of combative politics that turns so many people off. She is not incompetent. She is not deeply divisive. But she is something else. Something perhaps more damaging in this moment: deliberately conservative.

And by conservative, I don’t mean politically. I mean risk-averse. Passive. Managerial. A minister who prefers to let the machinery of government roll on untouched rather than intervene where the wheels are clearly falling off.

Take the heartbreaking story of nine-year-old Eda.

Eda is non-verbal and lives with significant disabilities. She had previously attended support schools, but was recently deemed ineligible by the Department of Education. That decision has forced her into a mainstream school setting, one that simply isn’t equipped to meet her needs. Her mother says she is now going backwards.

Let me repeat that: backwards. Not stable, not treading water, but regressing.

Eda’s occupational therapist, Kaitlin Perotti, has been advocating strongly for her, calling the decision “nonsensical.” And it is. The fact that a child with complex support needs is being denied access to a specialist school in Tasmania in 2025 should set alarm bells ringing.

So, what did Minister Palmer say when asked about the case?

She said that decisions like this are made “at arm’s length” from her office. She added that she had asked her department to look again at the case and provided information to the family on how to request a review.

The appeals have already been lodged. They’ve already been ignored.

This is where my concern lies. Not with Jo Palmer’s character, but with her approach. She is not leading her department; she is managing around it. And when leadership is absent, process becomes the excuse. The default setting. The wall behind which real problems are hidden.

This isn’t just about one case. It’s about a pattern. A chronic shortage of preschool places. The forced closure of existing childcare facilities without an alternative. A lack of investment in specialist schools. Waiting lists that leave families in limbo. And a department that seems increasingly unaccountable to the people it serves.

What Eda and countless children like her need is not a minister who nods sympathetically and shifts the problem down the line. They need a minister who says: This isn’t good enough. Fix it.

I understand that the role of a minister isn’t to micro-manage every decision. But when children are being failed by the system—especially vulnerable children—the minister’s job is not to stay at arm’s length. It’s to step in.

Jo Palmer might be a good communicator. She is a decent person. But right now, she is choosing not to act. And that choice is costing children their futures.

Nice isn’t enough.