Page 366 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2012
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the future. Our investment is in the kids. We have to make sure that we give the kids the opportunities we did not have. If some of us are lucky enough to have been given opportunities as kids, we need to consider those who did not.
My first school was at a migrant hostel and it was a two-teacher school with nuns. There were three grades in each room, and it was pretty ordinary. I went to about 13 different schools in my educational career because of the transitory nature of my father’s employment, and every one of them was a miserable, depressive rat hole. We do not have that in the ACT anymore. We have places which encourage optimism and opportunity and forward thinking.
The record of this government does not have as its focus short-term, cheap political gain. It has the benefit, the opportunity and the optimism that we so rightly need to hand over to our kids. They look to us to give them the tools to do better than we did. We need to give them tools to do better than we did and to repair the damage that other people have done.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (4.09): I thank Mr Hargreaves for his matter of public importance—the importance of making and supporting quality and timely investments in school infrastructure in the ACT. Today’s MPI is one which I am confident that all members in this Assembly would have no hesitation in supporting. Quality and timely investment is the cornerstone of any project management strategy. When it comes to education, quality investment in schools is absolutely critical to the delivery of sound educational outcomes. As Nelson Mandela has often been quoted as saying, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Here in the ACT we have much about which we can be proud in our education system. Each year in the ACT over 66,000 students are enrolled in one of 84 public schools or 44 non-government schools. As shadow education minister, I have been fortunate to have visited nearly every one of those schools in the past three years.
In the ACT, the Education and Training Directorate asset register values their investments in ACT schools at $1.854 billion, made up of $1.808 billion in land and buildings, leasehold improvements of $2.7 million, and property, land and equipment valued at $44 million. By any standard, the ACT has a significant financial investment and commitment, and it would be a formidable task to manage such a large asset.
When one looks at the Education and Training Directorate asset management strategy, I note that they base it on a number of key principles. Asset management activities are undertaken within an integrated and coordinated framework. Asset management practices and decisions are guided by service delivery needs. Asset planning and management are integrated with corporate and business plans, as well as budgetary and reporting processes. And capital expenditure decisions are based on evaluations of alternatives that take into account estimated costs, benefits and risks.
In the 2010-11 financial year, a total of $289 million was added to the asset register, with new land for the Franklin early childhood school and Bonner primary school, capital works at Namadgi, Harrison and Gungahlin, and $38 million in other various capital works.
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