Page 1613 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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When I said that Mr Seselja’s play could be called “Nine Laborites in Search of Credibility”, nowhere is this more obvious than in education. Education presents a litany of broken promises by the Stanhope government. Let us look at those promises. We were told that there would be no school closures. The ALP platform that they took to the last election talks in very, very vague terms about amalgamations; if we needed to have amalgamations, there would be consultation. Then there was the unequivocal statement made by Ms Gallagher’s senior staffer, which has never been gainsaid. As a result, we now have 23 schools either closed or in prospect of closure.
Let us look at it. They promised $12 million and two extra teachers per high school in the ACT, but the last EBA took two teachers out of every high school. Effectively, the Stanhope government has taken four teachers out of every high school in the ACT. At the same time they wring their hands and say, “We want to have a world-class high school education system.” They cannot have it both ways. They know they cannot.
Let us look at what they said to the non-government school sector to shut them up before the last election. They made six substantive promises, in writing, to the non government school sector that amounted to a substantial influx of funds into the non-government school sector. After three years they have given them $1 million last year; $700,000 this year and a paltry $300,000 next year. They have given the non-government schools $2 million out of that substantial amount. This is a government with no credibility when it comes to education, and the people of the ACT know it.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (5.28): The 2007-08 budget handed down by this government has provided little comfort for Canberrans. Last year’s horror budget has morphed into a horror budget this year, albeit disguised as a sheep in wolf’s clothing. There is no doubt that the bureaucracy in the ACT is severely over-bloated—it continues to be—but where is the restoration of lost capacity back to front-line service?
The Chief Minister has 22 additional advisers. I have now finally realised how he has been able drought-proof his budget: these advisers are clearly rain dancers. Seriously, the Chief Minister must justify these additional 22 staffers. How can he justify that when, over years, he has run down front-line services? We see no relief from the taxes and charges that threaten to cripple mums and dads in the suburbs; indeed, we have seen growth in these areas. Where is the attention to the delivery of service?
I turn to emergency services. Mr Corbell’s belief is that you only need equipment and training to manage and control a fire. He is wrong. First and foremost, you need willing, happy personnel. Just as importantly, you need to have a reliable, responsive and independent emergency services organisation to back them up. We do not have that. There are still 40 captains and vice-captains who have resigned from the rural fire service; there are many disgruntled volunteers and professional officers. Morale in emergency services is at an all-time low.
What is the use of new trucks without captains to captain them? What is the use of new RAFTs without captains to captain them? What is the use of training funds without captains to captain the training? The government has failed to break the
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