Page 3354 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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my children to a non-government school—a low-fee basic Catholic school. That was the education system that I was raised in and I make no apology for that. It is a good system. It is certainly not a privileged system, though, it must be said.
In this debate, we often hear people try and pit one sector against another, try and portray non-government schools as wealthy and as privileged. That simply does not stand up to scrutiny, particularly here in the ACT. There may be one or two schools which do have a very high standard of facilities in the non-government sector, but I would submit that they are the rarity; they are the exception. Most of the non-government schools we have here in the ACT are fairly basic in terms of their facilities. They are not bad but there is nothing spectacular about them. We do not have rifle ranges or swimming pools at many of these schools; we just have the ordinary facilities that we would expect. At a visit to Gold Creek recently, I noticed at the shared campus there the stark difference between the government school and the non-government school in terms of facilities. The minister has been out there. It is clear that the government school there, in terms of the infrastructure, has better facilities. There is no doubt about that.
Mr Barr: We’ve been investing a lot of money to ensure that happens.
MR SESELJA: That is fine. We do not begrudge that, but—
Mr Barr: Mrs Dunne does.
MR SESELJA: You can verbal Mrs Dunne all you like, but the reality is that these are the facts of the matter. I will return to the non-government schools in a second. It is worth noting, though, that people are not choosing for the facilities. People are still choosing to go to those Catholic schools; they are choosing to pay fees to go to those Catholic schools. It is not because they have got better classrooms, better playgrounds and a gym. At that campus they happen to share some facilities, but most of the facilities are separate.
People are choosing for different reasons. In any logical and reasonable debate on this issue, we need to get to the bottom of why people are making that choice. We all have our ideas as to why people are making that choice. Some of the reasons that people give me, and these are consistent, are these: “There is more of a sense of community in the non-government school that I’ve chosen to go to than what I had.” That is not true of every government school or every non-government school, but people are making that choice.
Parents who send their kids to the same school as my children have made the choice to go from various government primary schools for various reasons. We cannot pretend that there are not issues there and that people ought to dismiss the concerns. We cannot say that people are making these choices for superficial reasons, as the former education minister in particular implied. I do not accept that. I do not accept that parents make these choices for superficial reasons.
When parents make the decision to spend their own money, on top of their taxes, to pay for their child’s education, the vast majority make it for very serious reasons. Sometimes it is issues around discipline and other things. As I say, I do not think it is
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