Page 531 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 May 1992
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Non-Government School Funding
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to Mr Wood. His colleague Mr Berry referred to concern in the community in relation to another matter. Does the Minister support the call of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations that grants to non-government schools should be means tested, as put forward to the Berkeley inquiry into school funding and reported in today's Canberra Times?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, in broad terms I do not. I acknowledge the position from which they come. They present, in that statement, a longstanding viewpoint. However, our policy is such that we continue to fund non-government schools on the basis of need. That need is formulated on the Commonwealth 12-category system and we provide funds at half of what the Commonwealth provides. That is our policy, and at this stage we are not proposing to vary from that, though we have commissioned the report by Mr Berkeley that will be coming down shortly and we will attend to what he says.
We want to have a proposal in place, should the Commonwealth change its mechanism for determining allocations to non-government schools, and that could happen in the future, although I think it is unlikely that we would look at means testing. I add that means testing means that parents with greater income would presumably get less State-Territorial assistance. In some measure, on our needs basis but directed to schools, not to individuals, there is an element of awareness of availability of resources. But, to repeat what I said at the beginning, we do not accept their claim.
Industry Commission
MS ELLIS: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. I ask the Chief Minister: What is the Government doing about the Commonwealth proposal to move the Industry Commission to Melbourne?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I thank Ms Ellis for the question. I state at the outset that the Commonwealth Treasurer's decision to move the Industry Commission from Canberra to Melbourne is a retrograde step, and it is not a step that I support in any way at all. I believe, Madam Speaker, that this decision fails to recognise the role of Canberra itself. Canberra is the creation of the Commonwealth Government in order to service its own needs and to provide close links between the politicians themselves and their advisers.
I believe that this move is a sign that the Commonwealth is not being a good corporate citizen in the ACT and, of course, not recognising its role as the major employer in the ACT. It is a sad fact that there are some 230 people in Canberra employed by the Industry Commission. The removal of those people from Canberra to Melbourne not only means the loss of 230 jobs but also means the loss of some $15m in salaries and so on to our local economy. So, there are important spin-off effects from that loss of jobs as well.
There are also, of course, social costs to officers and their families which ought not to be discounted. To uproot families from Canberra and move them to Melbourne can be an extremely costly business for those families, can mean disruption of children's schooling and, of course, can mean disruption of spouses' careers as well. I regard it as a very poor step.
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