Page 3557 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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Mr Wood: We have been doing it for three years.
MS SZUTY: I will look forward to hearing about it, Minister. I note that existing Labor Party policy indicates that the current commitment to maintain existing schools does not extend beyond the term of this Government and puts the community on notice that school closures will be contemplated in the future. Madam Speaker, I will not accept future school closures because, to date, the Government has failed to effectively address this issue and other related issues such as bussing policy and community use of schools. It remains for the Government to identify effective strategies to manage government school enrolments in the future. I trust that it will eagerly accept the challenge which lies ahead.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Heritage and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.04): Madam Speaker, Ms Szuty has raised a question; but she has not provided an answer. She has claimed that the ACT Government has been doing nothing for three years; but she has been complaining madly about what we have been doing. I think that, more than being an education matter, this is a planning matter; but she has raised it as an educational debate, and I will answer it predominantly in that mode. She has provided an answer in only one respect - that a bussing policy would have some impact. The bussing policy is the one that she mentioned from the task force report which said that there should be no government funding of students who leave their local area. That is the only answer that she provided in 15 minutes of debate. Nevertheless, I thank her for raising the issue, because it is one of significance in Canberra. It is, however, one that will always be with us. I have to tell Ms Szuty that it will always be with us because, in a free and democratic society, where people exercise choice, there will always be free movement of people.
Ms Szuty did mention freedom of choice of enrolment. That principle is at the top of the list of principles in this community in respect of school education. As much as anything else, the community and parents appreciate the chance to enrol students where they wish to. That has been a long-term policy. It has not been just my policy; it has been a long-term policy that you can take your child where you like. There are only a couple of inhibitions to that. Firstly, every school must enrol everybody in its priority area and, secondly, a school should not enrol students beyond the limit of that school. In broad terms, that is the policy that has been re-established as we have looked at college enrolments. Ms Szuty said that we have done nothing. In respect of college enrolments, we have had a policy group meeting during the year. A policy is now out for discussion. In the broadest terms, that is what it says. So, we do attend to things. We do not propose, and Ms Szuty does not propose, to put a fence around the school area, to establish a school zone and to lock everybody into that. That is no answer. This is a free society. People can move about, as they wish, and I would not think of changing that.
More significantly in this debate, this issue highlights a fundamental difference in approach to managing government schools between the Follett Government and the Opposition. Ms Szuty and I do not have too many differences of opinion on this matter. She does not have any particular answers.
Ms Szuty: I have.
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