Page 3555 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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and then finding out that you have 57 people in a room and joining them time and time again, may well impact on the quality of education. I know that people say that it does not matter if you put in 100 of them, that their first class as a child in the post-war era had 96, but I do think these issues need to be tackled and they go to customer satisfaction as far as parents are concerned. (Time expired.)
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.52): I rise in support of Mr Barr's amendment to Mrs Dunne’s motion. I am concerned that Mrs Dunne and her colleagues continue to criticise the capital improvement program initiated by this government. She may think that investing in our public schools is throwing good money after bad, but the minister has outlined clearly this afternoon the need to do so.
Mrs Dunne is quick to make unfounded and scathing remarks about people’s commitment to their electorate but seemingly slow to support the hardworking commitment of this government to improving the schools in her electorate. I am proud of the government’s investment in schools in Ginninderra and I call on Mrs Dunne to explain to the parents of Aranda primary school why they should not have their school upgraded, or Belconnen high or Charnwood primary.
We all know about the grief that Mrs Dunne has been causing parents at Charnwood primary. Why does Mrs Dunne believe that upgrading Copland college or Evatt, Florey or Fraser primary schools will be throwing good money after bad? What is her fundamental opposition to Hawker college, Kaleen primary, Kaleen high, Melba high or Lake Ginninderra getting much-needed capital works? Mrs Dunne should go to Latham, Macgregor, perhaps Macquarie, Miles Franklin, Southern Cross and Weetangera primary schools and explain to the parents what she particularly dislikes about their schools and why their school facilities should not live up to the promise of the children that attend them.
I think that Mrs Dunne should listen to those in her electorate. I have received representations from parents at my mobile offices on numbers of occasions, people who know about the capital investment that this government is going to put into their schools, people who are eagerly awaiting it, people who know that it is needed and applaud this government’s decision. Mrs Dunne needs to be open with the community and explain whether she shares her federal counterpart’s bias against public schools or whether she is just playing politics. These upgrades are not just about making schools look better, although I think we would all agree that that is important. These upgrades are going to assist in making our schools more sustainable.
In question time earlier today the minister highlighted some achievements in developing sustainable programs in our schools. I think it is important in the context of this debate to revisit some of these achievements. I do believe they deserve emphasis. The new school to be constructed in Harrison will include design features such as natural ventilation in all buildings; night cooling and purging by utilising differences in temperature; individual buildings containing their own gas-fired boiler; the use of high thermal mass construction to maximise the heat bank characteristic of the buildings; optimisation of daylight to reduce the need for artificial light; rainwater collection stored in large underground water storage tanks to provide water for reuse for toilet flushing, plant and garden bed irrigation, and cleaning paved areas; the use of low maintenance environmentally friendly materials in construction; and a building
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