Page 2790 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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That is the real reason why everyone in the ACT must understand why the ACT Liberal Party is opposing this line of the budget and the principal reason why we will be opposing this budget in its entirety. We need to make a stand. We need to tell the people of the ACT that what is being proposed by this government is not good enough. It is the worst possible solution. You have got some problems. I am not going to say, “It ain’t broke; don’t fix it.” There are things that need to be done in the ACT education system to make it better and to ensure that it continues to be the best education system in the ACT.
We have to do something, but Andrew Barr’s something is the wrong something. If Andrew Barr was serious when he came in here on his first day and said, “I want to talk to the community about how to make the education system really work,” he could have been a hero rather then being pilloried around the town as he is at the moment. He could actually have made a difference, but what he is doing is gutting the education system. He is gutting school after school.
I predict that if parents who contribute to the P&C, to the life of their school in Giralang, in Gilmore, in Kambah, et cetera, are forced to move their children somewhere else they will basically give up. They are not going to make the same contribution to the school that they are forced to move to. They will say, “We work hard, make a contribution, raise the funds, run the fetes, buy the electronic whiteboards and then this government says, ‘It’s not good enough; we do not appreciate what you do; move along.’” They will not make that contribution the next time around and we will lose half a generation of parents who will just give up on the system. This will be the legacy of Andrew Barr, minister for education 2006.
Let us look at some of the other elements in the education budget. I think the best one is on page 373 of BP 4 when you get to the department of education. You have a whole lot of priorities for the Department of Education and Training. There is not one training priority in the list of priorities. The minister brushed that off by saying, “But we have got CIT and that is separate.” In the department down there in Manning Clark House there are people whose job it is to provide training services in schools and create pathways between schools and other training institutions. They do not get a look in. Do you know why it is? It because the government do not care. This minister is presiding over the gutting of the VET sections in the department of Education to the tune of more than 25 per cent.
More than 25 per cent of the staff are being moved out, are losing their jobs and are not having their contract renewed in an area where we have a skills shortage. Everyone is beating their breast about how we need to do more to increase employment in the ACT to fill the jobs that are becoming vacant. And if we can fill the jobs that are becoming vacant we might do something about the crisis in your revenue base, Chief Minister, Mr Treasurer. But what do we have? We have a minister who is presiding over the gutting of education and training services in his department.
There is nothing in this education budget except a little sop: some money—$1.58 million, I think—to be spent over the next few years on the Pacific games. In all of this, the only thing we have is some money for a one-off sporting activity and everything else is a gutting of the system. That is why we have to oppose this line in the budget. We
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