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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (18 April) . . Page.. 1064 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

allocated to schools and what it is used for are enormously different. The PAC report asked for a much better definition of what P and C responsibilities were, what these moneys were for and the better management of public money. Again, the Government did not take this seriously.

I have great pleasure in seeing you mock me, Mr De Domenico, because this is the sort of level that you descend to every time. Instead of listening to the clear evidence - - -

Mr De Domenico: No; it is not. It is because of your nonsensical comment that you did not know anything about this. All of a sudden, the revelation out of heaven came to you. What nonsense!

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MS McRAE: That is your interpretation of events. Our Government supplemented the education budget every year. Our Government was in close touch with these issues.

Mr De Domenico: It went down every year. Have a look at the figures. It is not true. You are saying things that are not true.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Ms McRae has the floor.

MS McRAE: Our party responded with absolute honesty to the issues before us. It was clear by the last election that all was not well in the house of P and C collection funds. This report by the PAC has put on the table what those issues are. You are the ones who are now walking away from these extremely serious issues. I support Mr Moore's motion.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (12.12): Mr Speaker, I think the hypocrisy, especially of the ALP here, is absolutely breathtaking. They have been in power for most of the time in this Territory. They have been in power federally, for starters. For Ms McRae to claim, "Oh, this is all really very new", this is something she had no inkling about, I think, is absolute rubbish. I think the ALP has very much a vested interest in this, because we recall that at the last Assembly election they were campaigning, as a spur of the moment idea, it seems, to get rid totally of voluntary contributions. One thing that came out of this report, I think, was that the responses that they got showed that most school communities wanted voluntary contributions to continue.

I am absolutely amazed at some of the things that Ms McRae said. The report goes through a number of matters, about 17 in all; and we have made a number of responses. Contrary to what Ms McRae said, a lot of those responses are quite positive; some are not. But there is a political angle, too, in some of the requests in this report. One is basically that we give more money out to schools; we increase funding. I would reiterate, Ms McRae, that that is certainly something which your Government did not do.

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