Page 5846 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011

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to offer support for the ESL sector. By her own admission, her interest is in teaching English speaking Canberrans a second language and in supporting foreign nationals to maintain fluency in their own language. Learning English is apparently not a high priority. As a bilingual Canberran, I can attest that you cannot get by in this city, in any city in Australia, if you cannot speak English. There are over 6,900 languages spoken throughout the world, but it is the English language that is most critical to economic and social development in our country and in Canberra.

I am encouraged by the new minister for education’s interest in literacy and numeracy issues among Indigenous Australians. I would hope that he would demonstrate a similar interest in, and support for, ESL students and their teachers who are underfunded and under-resourced. Having just said that I hope that he would do that, we recently saw a press release on this very issue in which the minister was again absolutely stretching the bounds of reality by saying that I am trying to get rid of a position.

Minister, I am trying to make sure your department retains a position that the ACT multicultural forum wants to retain, that the ACT education union wants to retain and that ATESOL wants to retain. Your obfuscation is just beyond words. I just find it completely incredible that you are trying to level an accusation at us that we are trying to get rid of a position—just as incredible as the Greens’ support, as I understand their position, on this matter. Again, it is a case of: the government is saying it, so it must be right. I am getting so heartily sick and tired of that line from the Greens, as I am sure all of my colleagues on this side are as well.

Dr Bourke, you come here with high expectations from a number of people in our education community. For you to be putting such rubbish in your very first press release I find contemptible. The fact is that this activity that we have tried to address here today has been sullied by your comments. ESL students deserve—

MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Mr Doszpot, address your remarks through the chair, please.

MR DOSZPOT: ESL students throughout Canberra deserve better than this. I would have hoped for better from the minister. I encourage all those who have a genuine interest in educational outcomes—and I thought that the Greens would fit into that category—to support this motion.

DR BOURKE (Ginninderra—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (4.23): I wish to respond to the amended motion by Mr Doszpot on ESL staffing. I move the amendment circulated in my name:

Omit all words after “May 2010” in subparagraph (1)(c), substitute:

“(d) the ACT Government has delivered a record $8 million to ESL programs in the 2011-2012 budget, which includes funding for ESL professional learning programs for classroom teachers.”.

The ACT government is proud of its achievements in meeting the needs of students with language backgrounds other than English. The Education and Training


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