Page 3108 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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of funding, if we were harsh in our attitude to education we could take a lot more off. If we took Mr Kaine's advice, and the advice of other people over there, we would take a lot more off. When education is very much overfunded by those Grants Commission comparisons, to take a mere 2 per cent off is treating education very generously.
MR CORNWELL: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I repeat: How can this Government claim that the level of service to schools will not be affected when they are planning to reduce approximately 80 school based positions? Am I to assume that, under your tutelage, they were surplus to requirements for the last three years or not?
MR WOOD: Mr Cornwell is not well aware of how schools operate, although I would have thought that after all his years here he would have been. If Mr Cornwell thinks that simply putting more and more money into schools brings better outcomes, higher standards of attainment and the like, he is wrong. Go back to 1974 when Professor Karmel, at the behest of Mr Whitlam, instigated a vast increase in education funding across Australia which did wonderful things for education; but then, some time down the track, people began to realise that things were better but educational outcomes in every instance were not all that much better. You do not simply equate expenditure with educational outcomes. It does not work that way. It is what happens within those schools that is much more important.
I would have thought that Mr Cornwell did understand our schools a little because of some background in the Schools Authority, although he is trying not to draw on that knowledge today. If he thinks it is impossible for schools to look at the way they run things, if he thinks that schools can keep on running year after year in exactly the same way, he is wrong. Schools are capable of structural change. Indeed, we have a long process this year leading up to an intensive debate about structural change. I can tell you that the outcomes in our schools are continuing to get better and better, and they will next year and the year after and into the future.
Fluoridated Toothpaste
MR STEVENSON: My question is to Mr Berry and concerns the recent media reports about dental fluorosis being caused by fluoridated toothpaste. I believe that that concern has been acknowledged by the National Health and Medical Research Council. I draw the Minister's attention to the report of the inquiry into fluoridation in the ACT which was published in January 1991, and to two specific recommendations. I quote:
... the ACT Government initiate proposals through its membership on various interstate councils and make direct representations to toothpaste manufacturers to:
. make unfluoridated toothpaste readily available at prices comparable with fluoridated toothpaste; and
. cease practices that make fluoridated toothpaste unduly enticing and palatable to children (eg the addition of colourings (other than white) and flavourings).
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