Page 2319 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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policy also said that Labor is committed to maximising preschool attendance.
These, Mr Speaker, were the undertakings made by the ALP to the Canberra community before the last election. I think parents could be forgiven for voting for the ALP over, for example, the Liberal Party if their principal concern was to get a higher standard of education in the Territory. Frankly, the ALP outbid us in this area and went to greater lengths to ensure that the vote of the education electorate, if you like, was sewn up.
You can imagine, Mr Speaker, how the preschool community felt only a few months later when the Education Department sent a minute to the five area preschool advisory groups telling them that five part-time preschools would have to close. In particular, Belconnen south, central Canberra and Woden-Weston preschools were required to reduce the number of single part-time preschools by two, two, and one, respectively.
I asked the Minister in the course of the Estimates Committee hearings a few weeks ago whether this idea was definite, and I was told that the idea was still in an early stage, that the letters sent out were basically exploratory letters, and that consultation was an essential part of the process before any decision was going to be made.
I want to quote from the minute that the Education Department sent out in respect of those comments and ask members of the Assembly to judge for themselves just how much they think those comments were meant to be provisional or exploratory. It states:
To achieve this a reduction of 1.0 full-time equivalent teaching position will need to be made.
This was in respect of the Belconnen south area preschool for 1990. It continued:
In addition to achieve the expenditure reductions from the amalgamation of part-time units as outlined in the Budget it will be necessary to close two single part-time units in Belconnen South.
I repeat that:
It will be necessary to close two single part-time units in Belconnen South.
It does not sound very provisional or exploratory to me; it sounds like a decision has been made: there will be two closures. Mr Speaker, the Labor Minister for Education basically is responsible for that minute because it was his department that sent it out. But it is the same Minister who is supposedly responsible and bound by the election
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