Page 1134 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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disappointing that the investment for the 70 per cent of students nationwide and the 60 per cent—still the vast majority of students—was not there.
Another failure was in early childhood, as the Chief Minister has indicated. All of the international and national research highlights the importance of early childhood education. It is the foundation for lifelong learning. The federal government has failed to acknowledge that in this budget. It was the one area that was not funded, and that is disappointing.
But let me look at the detail. What was particularly concerning was the little bit of detail that was slipped in as a one-liner in the budget papers in relation to the next funding agreement between the states and territories and the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth seeks to put in that a contingency that the states and territories must have external exams for years 11 and 12. Let me make this very clear: this puts in jeopardy the college system of continuous assessment in the ACT, a system that we have invested in in this jurisdiction. It has had bipartisan support for 30 years.
Our college system is the envy of every other jurisdiction. We continue to believe that continuous assessment of students in the ACT is a better way of assessing students’ abilities and knowledge and that a set of exams like the HSC are high stress and do not effectively measure a student’s knowledge. That the federal government is seeking to put at risk the ACT’s outstanding education system—and our year 11 and 12 assessment system through our colleges—for the sake of national uniformity is very disappointing. Let me make it clear that the Stanhope Labor government will defend the ACT’s education system. I look forward to receiving the support of those opposite in defence of our college system and our continuous assessment in years 11 and 12.
In the remaining time, I want to turn to the tourism portfolio. Some of the investment in national institutions in the territory is welcome. It is very important. As we continue to build on our efforts to promote Canberra as a tourist destination, we cannot ever underestimate the role of the national institutions. My concern—and it was put in stark relief at the Australian Tourism Exchange, which I had the opportunity to attend in Brisbane over the weekend—is that, whilst the ACT government and Australian Capital Tourism was well represented, with a very impressive display as part of the Australian Tourism Exchange, there were only two national institutions who partnered with us.
The issue that needs to be addressed is promotional budgets for our national institutions. The commonwealth government appears not to be interested in providing that additional resource to promote these institutions to the rest of Australia and the rest of the world. There is a great opportunity to bring more tourists to the city, if only the money were there.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (5.07): It is interesting to hear Mr Barr talk about his portfolio areas; sadly, it just shows the difference between what the federal government is doing and what the current local Labor government is doing.
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