Page 1651 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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Mr Wood: You heard people last night say that there were more kids who needed counselling.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, that might not be true.
Education - Priority
MRS NOLAN: I have a question also for the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts. I refer the Minister to comments by Senator McMullan in a letter to the editor of the Canberra Times which was published only yesterday. The letter accused the Government of not giving priority to education. I would like to ask the Minister whether he can inform the house of the priority that the Government gives to education within the budget rationalisation process.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I can. If members opposite are happy to describe their Federal colleagues as "not to be believed", then they might also use the same description of Senator McMullan. It appears to be a case of whatever one wishes to believe one accepts and what one does not wish to believe one rejects. I think Mrs Nolan's question very properly raises the question of priority within the whole education budget in the ACT. Rather than directly state that, I think I should simply quote the Chief Minister on this subject when he addressed the Australian Society of Accountants fairly recently. He said:
... we recognise the quality of the ACT education system and do not intend to do anything that will reduce our acknowledged level of excellence. We will not raise maximum class sizes. We will retain teacher-pupil interface levels. We expect, over time, to expand the curriculum available to students through resource consolidation.
The high priority that we place on education is a fundamental value of this Government. Where we differ from our colleagues opposite is that we do not see education simply in terms of grounds and buildings, but rather in terms of teachers and programs and the preservation of those things.
Ms Follett: Children?
MR HUMPHRIES: They all affect the clients, who are children in this case, Ms Follett. We consider that the first option to meet the financial demands on the ACT should be to rationalise our capital resources, not our teaching resources. The other alternatives - and the discernible alternatives that the previous Government pursued while it was in office, such as sacking teachers, increasing class sizes or curtailing programs - would have, in our view, a greater impact on education than anything we have proposed. Senator McMullan was quoted in the paper yesterday on that subject, and I think we can all take what
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