Page 2917 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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MR SPEAKER: Order! Sit down, Chief Minister. Withdraw that, Mr Seselja.
Mr Seselja: I withdraw.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Stefaniak then went on to say, “That has been the case for many years, but I do not think that we really have to delve into that part of the debate today.” Mr Stefaniak goes on:
I am probably the only member of this Assembly who went through the ACT state school system, from kindergarten … to year 12 at Narrabundah High School. I can recall quite clearly in my years in high school that many students … were bussed in from Curtin, Lyons, Chifley and Hughes before those schools went up in the Woden valley. It is interesting to note that those same kids who started off in year 7 or 8 at Narrabundah, when Woden Valley High and Deakin High came on stream, remained at Narrabundah and made that quite considerable journey … in buses … riding their pushbikes there.
Mr Stefaniak then recalls walking as a five-year-old from Griffith. He says:
I can recall many students I went through infants and primary school with walking considerable distances to get to school.
Mr Stefaniak then acknowledged:
… it was in those years that we got on to a neighbourhood school system, and in each of the suburbs that blossomed in Canberra—in the expansion in the late 1960s and 1970s—a primary school was provided. But the Federal … Government in 1988 realised that that really was something that could not continue.
Mr Stefaniak, the Leader of the Liberal Party, then said, “This Liberal government regrettably concedes that it would be desirable if we could do that. If we had the money to do that, we could. But we realise that it is a luxury that we cannot afford.” Mr Stefaniak then goes on to say, “I think Mr Humphries should be commended”—in the context of the Liberal Party’s proposal to close 27 schools—“for the very hard”—
Mrs Dunne: Fifteen years is a long time. It was the wrong thing then and it is the wrong thing now.
MR STANHOPE: This is what the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Stefaniak, is on the record as saying in relation to school closures and the Liberal Party’s real position in relation to school closures. This is his real position on school closures. This is not a position confected for this stunt of a motion. This is Bill Stefaniak’s real position. These are his words.
Mr Stefaniak says, “I think Mr Humphries,”—the then Liberal minister for education—“should be commended for the very hard, agonising and difficult decisions he has had to take—and, indeed” that the Liberal government “has had to take. No one likes closing schools,” Mr Stefaniak says. “It would be lovely if we could keep the system,” Mr Stefaniak says. “Unfortunately, we cannot keep it,” Mr Stefaniak says. “We are standing on our own two feet now and, unfortunately, just as in the rest of Australia - just
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