Page 5198 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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redundant they will be offered a chance to redeploy or they will be offered voluntary redundancy packages. We will not fire any public servants and I am quite confident that Mr Collaery will not be firing any while I am on leave.
Schools and Colleges - New Enrolments
DR KINLOCH: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to that Minister whose IQ is exactly one-quarter of the composite IQ of the four Ministers, namely, 576.376; so my question is to Mr Humphries. Is it a fact that all students attending a primary school, a high school or a secondary college for the first time next year will have to produce an Australian passport or an Australian birth certificate to prove that they are residents or citizens of Australia? Will failure to produce one of these documents mean that the student will have to pay fees?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Dr Kinloch for that question because it is a matter of some concern to some school communities at the moment that that might be the case. It certainly has been the expectation in some parts that that will be the case. The Commonwealth informed the States in the middle of this year that certain categories of foreign students in Australia will have to pay fees to attend public schools from the beginning of 1991. The Commonwealth will not provide funding for those students who are expected to pay for attending those schools.
Originally my ministry felt that it would be necessary to ask all students to show documents to establish their status; but a meeting was held in August between officers of the Commonwealth and State education departments, including the ACT department, and the recommendation was made that the number of categories be reduced significantly. Under this recommendation only the children of people from overseas who, themselves, were paying fees to study at tertiary education institutions would be liable to pay school fees. That means that such a large-scale operation as demanding documentation from every student will not be necessary in the ACT. It will also relieve parents of having to obtain birth certificates for their children, if they have not already got them, at the cost of $17 or so, and even more than that in some other States.
I am concerned, however, that the Commonwealth Minister for Employment, Education and Training has not yet endorsed recommendations of the meeting of his own officers and those of the States that attended that meeting. I can assure Canberra parents that they need not rush to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages because our schools will not require them either to provide a certificate or to pay fees.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I request that any further questions be placed on the notice paper.
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