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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2402 ..
MR PRATT
(continuing):Mr Speaker, then there is the $67.5 million injection into education-again a forgotten promise. Mr Speaker, we're still waiting with bated breath for that promise to materialise. Indeed there are many sections of education which could really do with that sort of money.
Mr Speaker, the Liberal opposition supports the initiatives that have been introduced in this budget from the $7.4 million which should have been spent in last year's budget. But the bureaucratic Stanhope government spent nearly $500,000 on reports and reviews-for example the Connors report-just so that they could tell the government how to spend over $7 million. I don't know whether that's a good operational ratio, Mr Speaker: $500,000 for basically $7 million.
If there were going to be inquiries run, perhaps a fraction of that money could have been better spent on other inquiries-for example, ways in which we could value-add to government schools and why there is a drift, and has been a continual drift, of students from the government sector to the non-government sector since 1992. That might have been a wiser and a more effective way of allocating some of our meagre resources in the ACT.
Mr Speaker, indeed one of the best funded new initiatives that we are very happy to support is the $900,000 over four years to help preschools with cleaning, insurance, and consumables. A paltry $460,000 has been allocated to evaluate school performance and achievement, while a nearly useless $1.5 million has been allocated for a class reduction program for non-government schools over four years. Nor has it been explained to non-government schools exactly how that $1.5 million is going to be allocated.
Ms Gallagher
: They make their minds up about that, Steve; we don't tell them.MR PRATT
: Well, there's no guidance in terms of what's going to happen regarding portable classrooms or not and what sort of assistance.Mr Smyth
: So they can spend it on interest subsidies.MR PRATT
: Yes, that's right. Why not?Mr Speaker, I also welcome the increased funding to provide more support for disruptive children at risk. I hope that we will be able to look over the 2003-04 annual report and see that this funding has been implemented in a worthwhile fashion.
Concurrent with that, I also welcome the government's plan to introduce welfare officers into schools. I know that they've only been able to put a small number in, but at least it's a start. Dealing with those children who are disengaging from school is a good thing, and we support that.
Mr Speaker, meanwhile there is nothing other than those issues that I've just talked about that really leaps out and strikes us as being something really new and something really value adding in terms of things such as boys education; declining numeracy;
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