Page 3939 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
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They went to the election, seeing all these figures and seeing the decline in enrolments, saying, “No, it will not happen for decades. Maybe we will have to look at it. It certainly will not happen in the next term of government.” Then, in May, after the election, when the figures come up again, they say, “No, no, no, no plans at all.”
Something between May 2005 and the budget of 2006 apparently radically shifted. Apparently there was a radical shift whereby the figures that the government was looking at prior to the election and in May 2005, which showed a decline in enrolments and projected declines in enrolments, meant that they would not have to close schools in the short term and that if they were going to close schools it would not happen for years down the track. Between May 2005 and well before, presumably, the budget of 2006, something radically shifted.
Of course, nothing actually radically shifted; nothing changed significantly in the numbers in that time. The government simply reneged on its promise not to close schools. That is what shifted. The government changed its position, its clear position, that it had taken to the election, which was that it was categorically ruling out school closures in that term and that if there were to be any closures in future they would not happen for many, many years down the track. That was quite simply a lie.
If you look at these figures, if you look at what Mr Barr has been saying, he is essentially implying that, faced with these figures, the government would have been crazy, would have been stupid, not to go ahead with these school closures. It is actually quite a significant attack on the previous education minister who, faced with these very same figures, said, “We will not be closing schools. If we close them, it is not going to happen for many, many years to come. It is not going to happen in the next term of government. We do not need to do it. It might be something we think about in the future.” When Mr Barr says they had no choice, he was looking at the same figures as the previous education minister was looking at.
We are left with only one of two possibilities. We are left with the possibility that either the government knew it was going to close schools prior to the election, it knew that those figures were going to lead it to close schools prior to the election and yet it lied, or we are faced with what is the implied claim in much of what Mr Barr has been saying: the position was that the previous education minister simply looked at the same figures as he has looked at and did not see the need.
Mrs Dunne: That is the view put out by the Labor right wherever you go.
MR SESELJA: Mrs Dunne reminds me that, within Labor circles, that is one of the views that are put: the previous education minister was not up to it. Mr Barr now needs to tell us and he does need to actually settle this issue for us. If it was not true on those figures in 2004 and it was not true on the figures in May 2005 but it was so overwhelmingly true as of last years budget in 2006, Mr Barr needs to explain to us, and explain to us very clearly, what changed from May 2005 to the budget of 2006; what significant demographic or other change occurred which made what was previously unnecessary decisions in relation to school closures necessary; what made them so important, so urgent; what changed between May 2005 and the budget of 2006 that would have made it impossible for the minister to make any other decision than to go down this path.
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