Page 770 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 1 April 2008
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more likely to be because people had babies. They might have been responding to the fabulous programs of the previous federal Liberal government to assist young families. I think Trevor Cobbold, the spokesperson for Save Our Schools, got it right when he said, “It’s more likely to be a result of the increasing birth and rising fertility rates in Canberra.”
I note that the minister is shaking his head. I hope the minister will get up and explain how Jon Stanhope’s budget of 2006 has spawned this enormous increase in the number of little kiddies that are available for government preschools. I look forward to that because it is interesting, when you look at the school-age enrolment projections based on birth rate and preschool enrolments and birth numbers, to see that they correlate by a couple of years. So, yes, babies were born; enrolment numbers go up. It is not really hard to understand—and it predates 2006, I can assure you. If you follow the charts, all of the charts in that series on births, school enrolments, preschool enrolments et cetera, you will see that the charts correlate. And they are all out by a couple of years because, yes, you get born first; a couple of years later you get to go to preschool; a couple of years later you go to primary school—and there it is. My son was born in 2006; it is now 2008. He is aged two.
Mr Barr: He’ll be in preschool in 2010.
MR SMYTH: The minister is very good. I can assure you—and the Leader of the Opposition can speak for himself—that my wife and I did not have a baby because of your 2006 budget. I can only speak for myself; the Leader of the Opposition can speak for himself. With respect to the former minister for education, she may well have looked at the budget consultation and been inspired to go out and have a baby. But, in the real world, that is not how it works, Mr Barr.
This is the problem with the glib answers of Mr Barr, the minister for education. He is slick; he is out there. His staff work the media really hard. He has got a spin going all the time. There is an angle. Yes, they are chatting to themselves and they are laughing. We do not notice that they are out there putting a spin on it. But the problem for the people of the ACT is that it is not about spin or being glib; it is about listening to the community and it is about managing the resource and the students in that resource that is public education in the ACT.
We can look at vocational education. If we look at the September 2007 quarter statistics from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, what do we find for the September quarter from 2006 to 2007? Commencements over the 12 months went from 5,100 to 4,200. We have got a decline, according to that statistic, of more than 1,000 students in vocational education. Is there a problem with skills in this place? Yes, there is. Again, the government cuts are impacting on vocational education in the ACT, and that is the problem. We have got a government––
Mrs Dunne: What did they do? They cut CIT in 2006.
MR SMYTH: Yes, they did cut the CIT in 2006. If you look at every initiative that this government has taken, you will see that it has had a dreadful impact on education in the ACT. You have only to look at the issue of school bullying. Mrs Dunne and
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