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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1323 ..

successful completion of annual personal and professional development programs” which could mean anything. If the issue is about attracting and engaging teachers of the best professional and personal quality, then introducing some half-formed requirements in legislation is certainly no way to do it. I am interested to hear again why Mr Pratt has not chosen to propose these requirements for non-government schools. It suggests an agenda looking to control government schools and to impose more onerous requirements on staff of government schools, while freeing up requirements of the non-government sector.

The delegation of hire and fire responsibilities to principals would significantly remake the public education system as it exists at present. I find it very surprising that it appears this was proposed without consultation. There are, undoubtedly, real issues in ensuring that all our kids have access to a high quality education system if the inequalities in our society could be further entrenched and extended through the establishment of such a self-serving and competitive system. I could argue in more detail about the implications of such an initiative, but it is not necessary at this stage. Perhaps the election campaign would be a better venue for that debate. Finally, as I have said, the whole issue of professional development warrants a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach than this at the in-principle stage.

MR PRATT (5.40): I rise again to talk about some of the issues raised. Firstly, I will speak about the question raised by Ms Tucker and by the Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services: that is, the applicability of these principles to the non-government sector. That is a fair question. I referred to it in my main statement.

We have said that we wish to see conformity of standards right across the entire spectrum of the ACT education sector. Where non-government schools do not exercise the sorts of principles that we are talking about now, we would certainly seek to enshrine these standards in the bill and encourage the non-government sector to pick them up.

Ms Gallagher: Here is your opportunity.

MR PRATT: Absolutely. We have said it and we will stick by it. Secondly, the Democrats raised issues of character and values. Character and values do evolve over time, but I think the education system is absolutely flexible enough to adapt to the changing times and to what I consider to be the current benchmarks in society—respect, character and values. In addition, there are, clearly, core elements of character and values that have not changed since Moses—integrity, loyalty, love of community, love of nation, fairness and tolerance, all of which are core issues which are applicable. They were—whenever—and still are. There are fringe elements of character and values which change with time. We are perhaps a much more tolerant society than we were a decade ago. We up the ante and we flex the system to take on board those issues. Do the Democrats seriously believe that character is redundant and that we do not need to enshrine it in our Education Bill?

The last point I would like to make on the three amendments is that it is really sad that the government indicated here today that it is held hostage to the unions. The unions, amongst dozens of stakeholders, have a very important say in the creation of education policy and the representation of the rights of teachers. But should the government’s

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