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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 373 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

operations. It also provided schools with a lot more money. We had the situation of basic moneys at certain times of the school budgets rising from, I think, about $6 million in accounts to over $20 million. It gave schools a lot more flexibility.

Yesterday, in answer to a question from either Mr Berry or Mr Hird, I quoted an increase of about 165 per cent. Mr Berry says that they are hanging on to it for a rainy day, that they do not trust the government and things like that. Whatever the reason, schools have managed very well. They all say that they appreciate enhanced school-based management for the flexibility it gives. I do not think that some people here quite appreciate that.

With it goes greater levels of responsibility as well as greater flexibility. The motion and the amendment combined suggest that in some way the department is not meeting its responsibility. I would not agree with that, Mr Speaker. Schools are funded to take responsibility for electricity, cleaning, ground maintenance and a host of other activities. The level of funding that they can actually go through and do themselves for new works has risen to $5,000 a job. In fact, some schools actually spend more than that on things that they want to see happening, including, might I say, airconditioning. It is a practice that is now well established in our schools.

What those members want to do, from my understanding of what they are saying, is to turn back the clock. It might be nice if we funded totally some airconditioning system throughout the schools. Yes, that would give the schools even more money. But what sort of system? Is it necessary? Is there a better way of doing it? Do the people participating in this debate really appreciate what enhanced school-based management is all about?

Let us go on to one of the other substantive questions here, Mr Speaker, the temperatures in demountable classrooms. We have a relatively mild temperature range in Canberra. Studies by the Bureau of Meteorology over the last three years found that, of the 200 or so school days annually, only 14 had temperatures which exceeded 30 degrees Celsius. That means we are talking about three weeks out of a total of 40 weeks in school when the temperature could be said to be getting into that hot range. I will be getting some more figures in relation to the department's monitoring of the second northern demountable at Gordon. It is interesting to see where the thermometers are put, Mr Osborne. I went there yesterday and there was one next to a window. Naturally, the reading for that would be higher than for one in the middle of the room, and it was.

Lets look at how demountables are actually equipped. They do have cooling and heating infrastructure; certainly the demountables that we are using at present. They have insulation in the walls and ceiling, they have a veranda on one side and they have awnings on the windows of the other side. They have ceiling fans, usually three per classroom, if the ones I saw at Gordon are anything to go by. They all have heaters. The only problem, I suppose, is whether this range of equipment is sufficient for our climatic conditions. I was out at Gordon yesterday. I saw a range of ways in which classrooms are run. Some had both lots of windows open and fans going. They were certainly cooler than the ones where, for whatever reason, some of the windows were closed and the fans were off. The readings varied a little bit on the temperatures there. Of course, we will get a read out from the other one, the department's monitoring device.

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