Page 1828 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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the law. Government is the acknowledgement that you represent the people and will always defer to the people and engage in thorough debate and consultation.
Today the minister—it happened last year to his predecessor—has been brought kicking and screaming to the position of putting forward legislation. If it were up to Mr Barr, we would have nothing by way of a consultation process. So it is a small step in the right direction, but it goes nowhere near far enough. Differences of opinion, whether politically or in the community, not only allow the government to identify what the majority of the people wish the government to do, but also allow the minority the basic right not only to disagree but also to be heard, to be given the opportunity to try and convince the majority, the government, of the validity of their case.
Since the Labor government took office in 2001, primary school enrolments have declined at an average rate of two per cent, dropping consistently every year. In fact, since coming to office, this government has done nothing about this drift. The only strategy the former minister for education suggested was for schools to engage in a marketing exercise, as if somehow parents who choose to take their children out of government schools are so stupid and do so for such trivial reasons that a marketing exercise would fix it. One suspects that the government is happy for students to continue to move away from the public sector, whatever the reasons, in order to save money.
As a result of the lack of action over the past five years, we now see desperate urgency on the part of the government on the issue of school closures. Our concern is that, because of this self-imposed urgency, proper process and proper consultation will suffer, and that is what we are debating today.
The new minister for education has denied the existence of a hit list. In fact, he was the first person to actually say the words “hit list” in this place. I did not actually ask him whether there was a hit list. I asked him about a list and he said, “There is no hit list.” This looks like a hit list, Mr Speaker. I think what we are seeing in the budget is a hit list of 39 schools. We can go through some of them: Hall, Flynn, McKellar, Giralang, Hackett, Reid, Weston Creek, Chifley, south Curtin, Melrose, Mt Neighbour, Tharwa—the list goes on. That is just for this year. There is a hit list.
The minister and the government have had to be brought kicking and screaming to the table even to make minor concessions on what consultation process they will put in place in closing down these schools. This is not going to be a genuine consultation process.
Mr Barr: So you are ruling out now closing any of them? You will reopen them all, will you?
MR SESELJA: They are going to just close these schools. These are the schools they want to close.
Mr Barr: You will commit today to reopening them all, will you?
MR SESELJA: They will put in place a token process and then they will close these schools.
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