Page 2343 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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the preschool community and educators and teachers in general?
On the subject of consultation, again we have seen the Pol Pot decision to compulsorily transfer some teachers - in some cases gifted teachers, who are far from being dead wood - - -
Mr Berry: I raise a point of order. Mr Collaery is talking about teaching issues; I thought we were talking about preschools.
MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, Mr Berry. Please proceed, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government has been on shaky ground since it produced a draft incremental budget because it needed to get views. It got views from educators immediately, from teachers, from pupils, from students and even children, who seemed to come forward spontaneously to some degree. At least they were caught up in a movement when perhaps they should have been in the classroom. But preschool children were brought to the square last week and, of course, there is widespread concern that cannot be denied. It is not a case of a pre-depression budget where there is no money to attend to these issues. The fact is that the money is there. We have seen it. We have mentioned the amenities block at the Belconnen land fill site and we could talk about other misguided priorities. Again, we have seen the incremental, tentative manner in which the Government proceeds with its policies. We have seen the first rationed-out release of the hospitals policy.
Mr Berry: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are on to hospitals now. I think the meandering must stop. We are supposed to be talking about preschools.
MR SPEAKER: I believe that Mr Collaery is making a point on finances associated with preschools. Please proceed, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The consultative process is really the way this Government should go; it is the way it promised in its pre-election electioneering. In education and in numerous other areas, we see that the Government is not committed to consultation.
There is no real natural justice to parents who find that, through offers of placement and confirmation tactics and infill processes, this ready system is devised whereby people who spend their day earning their living, mothers who spend their day caring for their children and taking them to and from preschool and performing their other functions - and that includes house husbands, such as Mr Moore was for a year; I give due recognition to that - do not have the time to sit in the pyramidal education offices that have now developed around the department and devise stratagems to beat down the interests of the community.
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