Page 2926 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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people of the ACT prior to the election and say what they were going to do with the ACT education system.
When we look at this bill from Dr Foskey, which we are supporting, and the amendments which have been flagged by Mrs Dunne, it needs to be said that it is important that we take a deep breath and have a look at what we are doing here, have a look at the reasons and have a look at whether this is going to be a good policy.
Apart from not taking things to the election, as I have outlined before, if you were fair dinkum you would not rush it through. You would not announce on budget day, “We are closing 40 schools and more than half of those schools will be closed by the end of the year.” If you were serious, if Towards 2020 had any meaning and if you were going to go to the people and say, “We have a plan, we have a vision for the next 15-odd years of education and beyond in Towards 2020,” would you not take a bit of time to consider it? You would not get a new minister, who has just come into the job and got his marching orders from Mr Costello and the Treasurer: “You go and close schools.” That is not how you would do it. You would take some time to consider why there is such a drift from the government sector to the non-government sector. That is the first thing you would do. You would look at the reasons.
There has been no analysis by this government of the reasons. Until we know why the people of the ACT are consistently choosing to pay for something that they could otherwise get for free, until we have the answer to that question, we cannot begin to form a comprehensive plan for reforming and improving the public education system. If you do not know why people are leaving, you cannot know what you have to do to keep them there. Tell us.
We have not heard a comprehensive statement from Mr Barr: “This is our comprehensive analysis. This has been our analysis. Now this is what we are going to do about it.” We have a cobbled together policy that was put together with undue haste, which did not consider these issues which Mrs Dunne has in her amendment, which would improve this process. Then the ACT Labor Party could regain the trust of the electorate by saying, “Yes, we deceived you in 2004, but now we are going to say, ‘Okay, we should have told you before 2004 what our plans were; now we are going to take some time to develop a proper policy,’ rather than just what Mr Costello said, ‘We have to close 40 schools; so now we are closing 40 schools.’”
That is at the heart of where we are at. That is why Dr Foskey has brought this bill forward. That is why we are supporting it but seeking to improve it. I read some of the words of the proposed amendment. We would look at:
(i) a comprehensive survey of, and evaluation of the reasons for, the drift in enrolments from government schools to non-government schools;
That is absolutely at the heart of the matter. I continue:
(ii) a long-term demographic analysis of the demand for school places;
(iii) a long-term analysis of the future use of surplus school land and buildings;
Mr Barr: I think (ii) is more important than (i), actually.
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