Page 2521 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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and soul to, unless there is no alternative. Closing schools should be an absolute last resort. That is why we have put forward this motion today.
We have heard so much balderdash here today from members opposite. We had the Chief Minister talking the other day about lengthy consultation under section 20 of the Education Act. I thank Dr Foskey for drawing members’ attention to what really happened in relation to section 20 of the Education Act.. Yes, it was amended and that amendment was passed without demur in this place, but we also have to remember that the minister responsible and her officials had emphasised that this period was a minimum and that they would do it better. We also have to remember that this minister’s officials told the parents and citizens association, in the same way that they told me, that we did not need to hurry to put the guidelines for consultation on school closures back into the Education Act because there would be no school closures. The lie that has been perpetrated by officials of this government needs to be held out for the community to see and to see what is the calibre of these people.
The two previous ministers for education have shown themselves to be completely shallow and completely unconcerned about the true nature of education in this place. Mr Pratt, as the shadow minister for education, and I have over the years asked these ministers whether they were concerned about the drift from government schools to non-government schools. Year after year in estimates and annual report hearings, Mr Corbell and Ms Gallagher said that it was not a matter of concern.
It could be said cynically that every time a child leaves the government sector and goes into the non-government sector it saves the government money. They were not concerned and their words are in Hansard to be held against them. They were not concerned. For five years, these people were not concerned. For five years, Simon Corbell and Katy Gallagher, the two previous ministers for education, thought that this was not an issue. And suddenly what happens? The Costello report comes along, we have a vast opportunity to make some money out of some school sales and the new kid on the block suddenly realises, long after the opposition had been sounding alarm bells, that the drift to the non-government school system was a problem.
Mr Barr has said in here that he does not want to see the government system become a safety net system, a system of last resort, but when I said that in this place last year I was decried by the Chief Minister, who said that the things that I had said, almost exactly the same words as Mr Barr’s, were absolutely and utterly outrageous and showed that I had no faith in the government school system.
My commitment to the government school system is on the record. I am a parent, a proud parent, of the ACT government school system. My children have attended government schools over many years. They have been served well by that and they are currently being served well by that. But when I have to explain to my eight-year-old, as I was this morning coming to work, why it is that the government wants to close schools, he does not understand. He does not understand why you would bother to put all of his schoolmates and their parents to the trouble that you have to save two per cent of the budget. An eight-year-old can work out that to do that to save two per cent of the budget is not a very good idea. So he says, “Mum, why do you reckon that they are really doing it?” We know why they are really doing it: so they can make a killing selling the land.
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