Page 2408 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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School Closures
MRS NOLAN: My question is also to Mr Humphries and it is in relation to education. In light of concerns over school consolidations, will the Government consider alternatives to reducing expenditure in the ACT school system?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Acting Speaker, I thank Mrs Nolan for her question. I think it is well asked in terms of the present debate and that is what this question time unfortunately has become. I think it is easy to lose track of why decisions like these have been made by the Government. We do face an extremely serious budgetary problem which the Chief Minister has outlined on numerous occasions beforehand and which those opposite refuse to acknowledge exists. Mrs Nolan has asked whether we have an alternative to reducing expenditure on schools. In our financial plight, we have two choices across all Government services: either we reduce spending and increase revenue so that we live within our means or we run into debt. These are the simple choices we have.
The Alliance Government is committed to us living within our means and as a result is seeking to ensure that we make our school system affordable. The alternative approach of running up debt is simply investing in a time bomb, as demonstrated by the desperate financial plight of States like Tasmania and Victoria. Tasmania has run into a financial brick wall. It is dramatically reducing capital expenditure on schools and is looking for budget cuts of more than 5 per cent, including the sacking of teachers.
Victoria now spends one and a half times the ACT's total budget just to service its debt. One in every $5 of State revenue goes for this purpose. Let us be clear, Mr Acting Speaker, one and a half billion dollars could be going into the private services of Victorians but the current taxpayers are spending one and a half billion dollars to pay for the services provided in previous years. This is the course of action which those opposite seem to be urging on us. They want us to borrow from tomorrow to pay for today's services.
Now, they say, "rubbish". If the answer is rubbish, what are the alternatives? Let them spell out what the alternatives are to the Government's course of action. What are they going to cut? We know what they cut last time, Mr Acting Speaker; they cut school services. They tried to cut reading recovery programs. They cut relief teacher hours. They cut programs of service directly related to the quality of education in our schools. That is what they cut or tried to cut. Mr Wood and others have said they never tried to close any schools. They tried to close preschools; let us not forget about that.
These are the alternatives this Opposition offers. This has been an approach eschewed by this Government. We
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