Page 3288 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 September 1990
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For example, we have said that we will establish an advisory committee on multicultural affairs. I do not believe that this is likely to cost the Government anything. It is something that can be done at no cost and we will do this fairly quickly. Once the committee is in place and it begins to recommend courses of action that the Government should heed and follow, then there may be a price-tag that can be attached. At that time we will consider what provisions ought to be made in the budget. Of course, if there is a financial liability that comes up this year, it can always be provided for by an allocation from the Treasurer's advance which exists for such purposes.
School Closures - Inquiry
MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I direct a question to the Minister for Education. The question concerns the Government's inquiry into its own incompetence, that is, the inquiry into school closures. Minister, where will the resource backup for that inquiry be located? Is it the case that it will not be either the education department or Treasury? What will be the extent of those resources?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Wood for his question. First of all I want to place on the record very emphatically my rejection of his description of this as an inquiry into the Government's own incompetence. When this inquiry was announced I predicted that people would say that the fact that the Government is conducting an inquiry into the costings and savings figures projected for school closures was proof of the fact that it had no confidence in the figures it had already produced. On the contrary, Mr Speaker, let me say quite emphatically that this inquiry is an affirmation, certainly, of my confidence in the work that my department has done to produce those figures, and I stand by the accuracy of those claims. If I were not prepared to do so, I would be most unlikely to have agreed to an independent inquiry.
The backup that Mr Wood refers to, I think, is a reference to the administrative support for the inquiry. It will certainly not come from the Ministry of Health, Education and the Arts. I understand that the ACT Treasury has offered to provide people who are competent to provide administrative support for that function. Given the fact that the P and C council, for one, continues to assert that it is the Treasury's view that we cannot make savings from this process, I would have thought that from that point of view we are, in fact, again delivering ourselves into the hands of our enemies, by providing to such people the access to the sensitive process of conducting this inquiry.
As I have said before, I am quite confident that this process, however it is conducted, will produce an outcome which will affirm the Government's decision up until now.
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