Page 4482 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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Ministry for Health, Education and the Arts
Proposed expenditure - Division 250 - Higher Education Policy and Planning, $410,800 - agreed to.
Proposed expenditure - Division 260 - Government Schooling, $180,040,500
MR WOOD (12.17): Mr Speaker, I had expected that some amendments to this figure would be proposed. It may be that they are still to come. The figures that we have in front of us are based on the budget papers and on proposals to close nine schools. That is not happening. The Government is not closing nine schools. So one assumes that there will be changes to that figure, or is it that the Government is no more competent in its planning than it has been for the whole year in relation to education?
Mr Humphries cannot be accepting the Hudson figures because, while his attitude to the Hudson report is still vague, it seems that he has not accepted option C in its entirety. While he adopted the recommendation not to close three schools, other matters from option C have not been accepted, or certainly there has been no statement to that effect. Indeed, we wait for a considered statement relating to the Hudson report. Is it now no more than an exercise that is expensive in time and money?
We are looking at these figures which are based, in part, on supplementary budget paper No. 3. To the extent that we agree with Hudson, figures in that document are wrong. The Minister has not said that they are wrong, although he has in general terms supported the view of Hudson in that he says that the report supports the Government's view that savings can be made. To that extent, the Minister would appear to be accepting Hudson's comments on financial matters. So, on that ground again one would expect to see some changes coming through.
What will happen? It is clear that no consideration has been given to this. Let us expect that there will be no shrinking of the education budget, that other programs in the education budget will be required to find those funds. The Minister has said on many occasions that he chose not to go down the path of making savings in other areas of education, so we assume that these figures will have a shortfall. We cannot be quite sure of the amount. It is not the Hudson amount because Hudson has not been fully accepted or fully rejected, whichever term applies. The Minister may tell us where the gap is coming from.
Presumably there will be a shortfall, Minister, because you have not closed all the schools that you expected to close, and Hudson said that your figures were overestimated in some areas. So, there is a gap of some magnitude. I am not in a position to say whether it is half a million dollars or a million dollars. You should be in a position to indicate, but you clearly are not. You may give some
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