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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 303 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

In conclusion, I repeat that education is an investment. We can no longer allow Liberal governments - and they are doing it right around this country - to force the market model onto education. We have to start taking into account the consequences of doing that. The whole of society is going to pay in the long term. Even if you are interested in focusing only on the economics of education, it is going to cost you heaps if you do not put the work in now.

MR BERRY (11.25): Labor is the only political grouping in this Assembly who can stand up and criticise the Liberals with a clear conscience. We have never supported the Liberals. We did not put them into government. We did not vote them into government; neither did we try any illegal stunts to try to keep them there. We have been straight as a gun barrel on this all the way. If you put the Liberals in, you get Liberal budgets, you get Liberal industrial relations policies, you get Liberal social justice policies and, to use Mrs Carnell's words, the list goes on. Mr Moore, Mr Osborne and the Greens voted for the Liberal Government. Listening to Mr Moore's speech, I had a feeling of deja vu. I thought it was the Residents Rally again. The Residents Rally also put a Liberal government into power and then complained about what that government were doing. Eventually that government fell apart.

Many promises have been made by the Liberals and many have been broken. I recall the promise that they would never close a school if the community did not want it closed. The community of Charnwood said, "We do not want to close our school". What did the Liberals do? They closed it. They did not even turn up to the meeting. Neither Mr Hird, who was then spruiking about the Liberals' education policies, nor Mr Stefaniak bothered to turn up at the community meeting in their electorate that was considering the future of the school.

Mr Moore: I draw your attention to the state of the house, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: A quorum is not present. Ring the bells.

Mr Hird: It just shows how interested they are in education. There is only one of them in the chamber. I hope that goes in Hansard, Mr Moore.

Mr Berry: I would rather have all the ministry here so that I can give them a bit of a lecture.

Mr Moore: Your own colleagues are not interested in what you have to say.

Mr Berry: It is the job of you and the Government to look after a quorum.

MR SPEAKER: It is not the Government's responsibility; it is the Assembly's responsibility. I refer you once again to House of Representatives Practice.

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