Page 2791 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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can talk about the fripperies—$90 million sounds impressive—but remember that we are going to build car parks with that so that we can encourage kids to drive to school.
If you truly wanted to increase and improve the fabric of the ACT education system, on the basis of the money that is being spent on new schools at Harrison and proposed to be spent at Ginninderra district high school and on new schools, the $90 million is severe underfunding. The government cannot do what they propose to do with the $90 million, but we are prepared to throw away $65-odd million in capital write-offs of schools that we already have. Instead of increasing and improving the fabric of the schools we have, we are going to write it off. If we are being so economically responsible, why are we writing off and writing down $65-odd million worth of school property? It is so that the government can sell it.
You are losing $65-odd million out of your balance sheet. Instead of building the fabric of the school, you are breaking it down. You are not going to be using the schools anymore, so you have to write them down. We understand accounting treatments. But part of the cost—your $191 million—that you say that you are spending on education is a $65 million write-down of an asset. You cannot claim that you are spending that money and that you are doing good for the ACT education system, because it is a loss you.
Mr Barr: So you are opposed to the $90 million, are you?
MRS DUNNE: I am opposed to the way that you propose to spend $90 million. The people of the ACT are opposed to the notion, the reckless notion, that you would actually spend some of that money on building car parks and that you would be so stupid as to say so on public radio. It is thoughtless. There was a series of what we in my office called Barr gaffes. It was in a difficult time, but the one that took the cake was: “I know, we will just build more car parks.” There was also the one about how people did not want to send their kids to non-government schools because they still use the cane. That was a good one. And there was a collection of other Barr gaffes. It showed just how little this minister knows about his own portfolio. The fact that he knows so little about his portfolio is sufficient for us to say, “By all means talk to us about how to improve the education system, we will be part of the conversation, but we are not going to be part of the conversation when it is about Towards 2020, because Towards 2020 will be the death of our education system.”
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (2.33 am): This line of the budget is really overshadowed by the Towards 2020 proposal, which sees the wholesale reorganisation of ACT government schools, including the closure of 39 schools and preschools, and the reshaping and merging of many more. Given that, I find it extraordinary that when this budget was released, of the accompanying 75 media releases, five of which were specifically about education, not one mentioned that any schools were proposed to be closed. Did they think we would not find out?
I find it extraordinary because within that strategy is the presumption that misleading the public for a few hours, a few days or forever is entirely acceptable. Media release No 1 for this budget from the Chief Minister and Treasurer argued that our economy is strong and that the budget faces no immediate crisis. If that is the case, whatever the scale of changes that need to be made to our public education system, it was possible to do so in a
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