Page 3944 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
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not a problem.” But within four months the government had announced that it would close the school.
Instead of dealing with the community, having a discussion with the community and taking the community with them, the government announced a decision. They said, “We will have a consultation on it.” I think this was one of the memorable quotes from the minister for education. He said: “You cannot actually have a consultation until you have made a decision to consult on. We will make up our mind and then we will consult with you about how we might best implement that decision.”
That, of course, was the beginning of the end of the love affair with the Stanhope government. It was really brought home the next year under the Towards 2020 proposal, which saw schools like Giralang, Hall, Flynn, Mount Rogers and Cook, and the Melba schools of Melba high and Copland college, all under threat of closure or amalgamation.
Some of those schools received a reprieve. Schools like Giralang were lucky, but the treatment of the people of Giralang in other areas has been fairly appalling as well. The people of Giralang have been crying out to ensure that appropriate planning decisions are made to maintain shops in their area. The treatment of the people of Giralang by successive ministers for planning has been a disgrace, and there is still no resolution to that. In the meantime the people of Giralang have the eyesore of dilapidated and gutted shops in the middle of their suburb.
The people of Belconnen really tend to be the poor cousins in many ways of other people in the ACT. It is interesting considering that the Chief Minister hails from Ginninderra, but when the Tuggeranong community gets an arts centre, people in Ginninderra get half an arts centre without an auditorium.
Mr Seselja: It goes with the half road.
MRS DUNNE: It goes with the half road, yes. If the Chief Minister had sat on the seats in the small auditorium at the Belconnen community theatre lately he would know how inappropriate and how worn out that seating is.
The people of west Belconnen have amongst the worst GP-to-patient rates in the country, and the lowest bulk-billing rate in the country. But there is no solution from the Stanhope government to deliver them better primary healthcare services because we have a health minister who says that there is really nothing that she can do in the face of corporatised medicine moving all the doctors into centralised places. This is a minister who is not prepared to fund innovative solutions brought about by the community.
We have a range of services that have not been delivered to the people of Ginninderra. We have schools that are closed in Flynn. There is a shadow over why there was such enthusiasm to close Flynn, and why the Chief Minister played favourites with Flynn school over Mount Rogers school. Why would a man who represented both groups of people want to play favourites? But there is a clear path of evidence that there was a conflict of interest in his office and that he was prepared to play favourites and chose
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