Page 4052 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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MR KAINE: I do not know the specific answer to that question, but that is the significant difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party uses its entire site and none of it is used for any other purpose. The Labor Party does use part of their building for other purposes. Such use is not inconsistent with leases to national bodies in that area. But I can certainly find out and confirm that the use of the lease is consistent with the purposes that apply.
School Closures
MR WOOD: I direct to Mr Humphries a question concerning the school closures. Mr Humphries, why did you undertake a deliberately divisive course of action in requiring one school community to criticise another - that is, the Hawker school community was asked to comment on the submission of the Weetangera school community in relation to the closure of Weetangera school?
MR HUMPHRIES: It certainly was not the intention of the Government to make any of this debate divisive and to pit one school against another, although I might say that some schools have certainly articulated that in the debate that has followed. It was not the intention of the Government at any stage to ask the Hawker school to comment on the submission from the Weetangera school, but there was a stage where the Weetangera community put up a twinning proposal to the Government. Naturally, were such a proposal to be acceptable, it would have to be done with the support of the Hawker community, and a group of parents from both the Hawker school and the Weetangera school came to see me, and I think Dr Kinloch also.
We discussed the implications of their proposal and I asked for feedback from both school communities as to whether this proposal would be a successful one. Subsequently a meeting was held at the Hawker Primary School. That group of parents rejected the proposal and that view was conveyed to me in due course. I indicated then in turn to the Weetangera community that I did not believe it was appropriate to proceed with a twinning proposal where one of the twinning partners was unwilling to proceed.
That is not the Government pitting school against school; that is a school community attempting to negotiate an arrangement which suits itself and its neighbouring communities. I do not apologise for that kind of arrangement.
MR WOOD: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. No, we are talking about different things, Mr Humphries. The Hawker school was asked to comment on a defence that the Weetangera school made. In order to resolve the issue, would you agree that where assessment of a school's claims needs to be made it should be done by the reshaping team rather than another school?
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