Page 2781 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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opportunity to take more land, so the initial decision to reduce the footprint of a school like Telopea Park, as we said, was clearly short-sighted and, frankly, stupid.
I note that the estimates committee recommendation that the Education and Training Directorate provide to the Assembly its assumptions underpinning modelling in relation to future school developments was refused. One needs to ask why that might be so.
In respect of where new schools should be, I know that the non-government school sector would like to be considered in planning processes undertaken by ETD and LDA. Given that we know that the ACT has a consistently high percentage of children attending non-government schools, it would seem prudent that land be set aside for schools, recognising the current ratio between government, independent and Catholic schools.
Such a policy might also help to reduce what I consider is unreasonable criticism every time the government is asked to approve a new non-government school. Given that groups such as SOS and the AEU will never accept the need for and role of non-government schools, I believe their arguments and complaints have to be considered in that light.
On the recommendations of the appropriations report, the committee made several and I will go though them. Recommendation 92 was about providing the Assembly with the assumptions underpinning the modelling for future school development, and that was denied. The response claimed that this information is contained in working documents and updated on a frequent basis. (Second speaking period taken.) I see that was the fairly frequent excuse used to deny information to the Telopea Park P&C president in the response to his FOI that arrived yesterday.
Recommendation 93 recommended that the ACT government consult more closely with the affected parties in the Telopea Park and Mocca land swap to investigate what other options might be available. This was agreed. But as we saw today, this government is like Houdini when it comes to moves and twists and turns and obfuscation. Suffice to say we will believe it when we see it. The affected communities are even less impressed by those on the other side of this chamber after witnessing at first hand just how frequently they change positions and reinvent the truth or just do not show up to take part in debates on education at the ministerial level.
Recommendation 94 recommended that the government conclude its inquiry into the inappropriate withdrawal space in an ACT school expeditiously and provide an update to the Assembly within three sitting days of receipt of the report. The government’s response was “Noted.” Frankly, that is about all we can expect to get. To say that the finalisation of the inquiry “remains a priority” is bunkum at best.
After the very first announcement of the issue at hand, Ms Burch, the minister for education, gave us a briefing, which we attended, at which I agreed with the approach that the minister was taking. I questioned whether it was actually an independent inquiry that was being set up. I did question that. But I wanted to see the terms of reference to be applied. That was way back then. We are talking about 2 April, when I
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