Page 1982 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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So we see once again the sheer hypocrisy on the part of the Opposition. Its members seek to misrepresent the position as far as our policies are concerned, but they are also misrepresenting their policy as well out in the public arena and they should be damned forever for that.
Education Policy
MR WOOD (5.00): Mr Jensen has just read some very familiar words. As education spokesman for the ALP, I wrote those words. They were accepted in the usual ALP policy forums and conferences. What Mr Jensen did not do was to read out the entire statement that I presented, which went on to say that in the first term of this parliament no schools would be closed. That is exactly what Rosemary Follett in government did: she proposed that no schools should be closed.
Mr Humphries, in other speeches, does not recognise the quite significant difference between schools and preschools. So when I said that no schools were to be closed, I was quite accurate, and there was a variation in the case of preschools. We do not argue about that at all. Mr Jensen, when you take our documents, you would do yourself a favour if you would take the complete lot of them. I will give you the full draft of what I said at the media launch and on other occasions in our election campaign when we made it emphatically clear that no schools would close.
I want to comment further on what Mr Connolly said because I intend to be persistent about this. The Government is committed to school closure. Not on educational grounds are these matters to be examined, but on grounds of saving. I am going to keep asking Mr Humphries not to do it on the hope or on the thought of what he can save. If he is to take the very drastic step to close a school, he should know exactly what it is he will be saving. I ask him to please understand exactly what those savings will be, and I encourage him to pursue the studies that are around and undertake his own studies to determine the position.
I believe that the savings are not worth the loss of benefit when a school is closed. Indeed recent studies, I regret to say, outside the Education Department and the Government suggest that there are no savings. This has to be examined most carefully. Please, Mr Humphries, will you make absolutely sure you know what you can save if and when you close a school.
Health Promotion
MR BERRY (5.03): Mr Speaker, I rise in this adjournment debate to talk about the issue of consultation, because the
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