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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 374 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

As I said, as well as Gordon, we are monitoring four other Tuggeranong locations-Conder, Theodore, Gilmore and Monash-with equipment that complies with Australian standards. I will be very interested in the reading from the monitoring device which was next to the thermometer in classroom No 2. The thermometer said, I think, 31 degrees, so it will be interesting to see what the reading is there. Our recordings have indicated that there have been eight days so far this summer when the temperatures exceeded 30 degrees. In all but one instance, they were at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. One was at midday. That is another factor there.

The government is not unsympathetic to the claims that some classrooms do get unpleasantly warm. That is something that we would like to see fixed. We do have policies in place to assist in the alleviation of high temperatures, whether they are in demountables or anything else. Those include things like kids wearing appropriate clothing, having a sufficient fluid intake, teaching practices being appropriate to the conditions, and classes being able to be rotated through the cooler sections of the schools.

The fundamental question is whether having airconditioning-in particular, the type of airconditioning-is the correct solution. What is appropriate? Should it be reverse cycle airconditioning? There are some things that are very expensive. Is that the correct solution to a problem that might only exist for a very short time in our schools? Might there be some better way of doing it, maybe a better type of airconditioning. The schools themselves might want to take that on board and see what they think is best.

Kids are on vacation for the hottest part of our summer, which is another factor. We are talking about what is the best way forward for a relatively short period. There are some drawbacks with reverse cycle airconditioning, if people think that that is the best way to go. It is expensive to run and it is expensive to maintain. There are nowadays concerns about infestation of the cooling system by the legionella bacteria. It is an expensive system to install. Mr Berry, if we did that-I am told that the cost would be between $12,000 and $20,000 a classroom-it probably would get us up to about $2 million. What sort of airconditioning is appropriate? I do not think anyone has particular problems with heating, Mr Speaker, so we are talking about cooling.

I will reiterate what I said yesterday in terms of the meeting I will be having with people from Gordon tomorrow. Someone mentioned whether the demountables are sited properly. If not, we will take steps to fix that; I would not expect the school to do so. I think that would be absolutely essential. Under school-based management, we have had instances already where a number of schools have used their money, because they see it as a priority, to put certain types of airconditioning into their buildings. In one instance, the instance of Hall, I think the cost was some $34,000. (Extension of time granted.) That was done as a result of having enhanced school-based management. It was not something that gave Hall any cause for concern. It is something that was done as a result of having school-based management and I do not think that some people appreciate what school-based management is all about.

Demountables, as I have indicated, have had certain in-built heating and cooling steps taken already. Schools have had certain heating and cooling steps taken already. If Mr Berry's part of the motion were taken to its logical extreme, we could be up for the

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