BY DANNY FAIRFAX
Imagine this: you've had a bad day at school, bullies have pestered you, and your teachers don't do anything to prevent it. Finally the bell rings and you can go home, where you decide to vent your rage — by writing a revenge scenario in your diary.
It's a bit indulgent, but no harm done. After all, it's safely tucked away in your personal diary. Nobody else is going to see it, right?
Wrong. For 15-year-old Cecil Hills High student Jack Sychampanakhone, this scenario has become a nightmare.
His diary, containing detailed "plans" for a Columbine High-style school massacre, was paraded in front of parliament and splashed all over the media.
Although his plot was far from serious, and, as documents released under freedom of information now show, the school had the matter under control, Sychampanakhone's diary was used by NSW education minister John Aquilina in an alarmist exercise in political point-scoring.
Aquilina was feeling the heat. His plan to "restructure" public secondary education in inner Sydney — shutting down high schools and selling their land, while converting others into single-sex schools — has been met with an outraged community response.
Huge public meetings against the closures, industrial action by the teachers' federation and local rallies organised by Save Our Schools have become a regular part of Sydney life.
So Aquilina thought he was on a winner on April 10 when he produced Sychampanakhone's diary in state parliament and used it to "prove" how efficiently his government had been able to stop mass slaughter in our secondary schools.
He portrayed Sychampanakhone as a disturbed youth, hellbent on killing as many of his classmates as possible. Thrilled with the story, the media went on a rampage of coverage of "our" school massacre.
Typecasting young people, particularly those from Asian or Middle Eastern backgrounds, as potential murderers and dangerous criminals is nothing new for the NSW state government. Premier Bob Carr, and various police ministers, frequently blame "youth gangs" for Sydney's growing social ills.
But this time it backfired badly.
Repeated comments by the school emphasised it did not believe a massacre was a real possibility. Aquilina dug himself an even deeper hole by claiming that the student had access to weapons at his home. This was not true, and Aquilina forced his press secretary to take the fall and resign, claiming ignorance himself.
Aquilina steadfastly refused to apologise for the incident to the family concerned for more than a month, despite every poll indicating most people believed he should.
Although he finally apologised in Parliament on May 29, he has refused to consider a compensation payment to the family, claiming that they got enough money, $25,000, by identifying themselves on 60 Minutes on June 24.
Aquilina argues that the damage to Sychampanakhone was limited, because neither he, nor his school, were identified in Aquilina's parliamentary speech. But the media quickly revealed that the school was Cecil Hills.
Once that had been done, it was clear within the school's community that Sychampanakhone was the student involved. The scandal has been so intense in Sydney that the school is even considering changing its name.
The damage the whole affair has done to Sychampanakhone is clearly immeasurable. Already troubled by bullying, he has been viciously attacked by politicians with little knowledge of the situation and lambasted in the media.
For Aquilina, what was designed as a way to get his name in the papers (in a positive light) has only increased the heat on him.
The calls are getting louder, not only for a full and unequivocal apology and government compensation, but for the resignation of the education minister himself.