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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (13 February) . . Page.. 40 ..

Mr Corbell: It is true.

MR STEFANIAK: You really are misleading people if you keep that up. Members could not have done better than to listen to the principal of the school speaking on 2CC this morning who, I understand, gave an excellent explanation of exactly what occurred there. Whilst I might not give quite as good an explanation as Bill Maiden, the principal, did, I will endeavour to do so, Mr Speaker.

To start with, I think it is about time that members of the Assembly took a much more responsible attitude to their duty to provide the facts and not just jump in and say, "Ho, ho, here is a good story," without checking the facts. It is a very simplistic approach from Simon. I would invite Mr Corbell to go to the school, visit the class in question and have a good look, not just jump in saying, "Here's a good story." No doubt he thought, "Here is a good story. A class of 60 with maybe only one teacher after the government has announced a reduction for primary school classes. Wow. What a beauty." Check out the facts first.

Here are a few facts. At Gold Creek this year, Mr Speaker, we did have 29 more students enrolled than the demographers had planned, but across the whole of Gungahlin our enrolments were 13 below what they had forecast. The cohort is some 1,400. That is pretty good. The demographers were wrong by about a percentage point, which I think is quite reasonable. In fact, over my six years as minister the work of those demographers has been pretty good because invariably they are very accurate. This is the case here, although there are a few more at that school than need be.

I point out to Mr Corbell that the government has indicated it will commence on some new schools in Gungahlin and by 2004 we expect to have a new preschool and a primary school at Amaroo.

Mr Corbell: That will be handy. They will be in Year 5 by then.

MR STEFANIAK: The following year a new high school site will commence. Just listen, Simon, and you will get some facts. This school will be modelled on the Gold Creek K-10 school. It will provide a primary facility to cover K-5, a purpose-built middle school covering Years 6 to 8, and a high school for the remaining years. We have committed some money for design and siting next year. You will see that in the budget. The estimated cost of the whole school is in the vicinity of $25 million.

I reject any suggestion that this government has either delayed or neglected the educational needs of Gungahlin students. Far from it. I think you just have to look at the Gold Creek school to see what an excellent facility it is.

When it was discovered that an additional class would be required in the week before school started, the school took a decision-that is, the principal and the teachers took a decision-to locate two Year 1 classes in the school resource centre on a shared campus between the primary school and the Holy Spirit Catholic School. That area is used by both schools-it has been for the past five years-and it is the same size as two standard size classes each built for 30 students. There is a concertina which divides the space into two normal class sizes. Because it was proposing that the future

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