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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2623 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

enunciated last February to this Assembly, and that the final draft of the guidelines or the final guidelines will incorporate a clearly enunciated planning objective, a requirement to assess impact according to the specified criteria and transparent procedures for the assessment of impact, and that the process will include public consultation on new school proposals?

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Moore, I think public consultation is absolutely essential in terms of this right across the sectors. In terms of further guidelines, I indicate to Mr Moore that this is in fact a first draft.

Mr Moore: Yes, indeed. I think I emphasised that. I appreciate that.

MR STEFANIAK: You did, Michael. It is a first draft. In fact, quite a few comments have come in to the department and they are in the process of incorporating those comments in a revised draft. I intend to get further comments from all the key players in relation to that. By the way, you mentioned financial viability and a few other things. If you look at the guidelines for registration and re-registration of non-government schools you will see on page 6 heading No. 2, "Criteria for Registration of Proposed Schools and Registration of Existing Schools". It says:

The following criteria which are consistent with the Education Act contain the essential elements that schools must have if they are to receive or maintain registration -

financial viability - - -

Mr Moore: No, no; I am talking about the financial viability of existing schools, not the financial viability of the new ones.

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Moore, you raised a couple of points on which I would like to correct you. I had a good look through this recently. I think there might be one thing in it which may have caused you some concern and that is the use of the word "may" in education and planning. This might seem a little bit at odds with or perhaps a bit different from what I said in relation to assessment of impact of planned enrolment growth of new schools on existing enrolment distribution. At the risk of getting into semantics I would say that that may be something that causes you concern. It is certainly something the P and C raised with me, but they have put in fairly lengthy submissions in relation to this. The independent schools, through, I think, the chief executive officer, Joyce Hill, have also put in comments in relation to that and other areas, too.

Interestingly enough, from talking as I have in relation to this matter with a number of people in both sectors, I think you could say that there is certainly room for a sensible consensus in terms of planning new schools, be they government or non-government, to look at any significant implication for existing schools. I think that is something we have not necessarily done in Canberra in the past, not necessarily just in terms of non-government schools but perhaps also in terms of the planning needs for government schools. I think we are now learning from the errors of the past because there is nothing more traumatic for a small dedicated school community, be it a government school or

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