Page 2338 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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I think that the debate we have already had on this matter sums up quite well the thrust of the arguments supporting the motion that appears before members now. I only want to make a couple of brief points in this regard.
I was very pleased to see that the Government has admitted finally and clearly that, for the purposes of the promises made on 14 February this year, preschools are not schools and will not receive the same benefit of the promise not to close them unless the preschool community agrees. I am pleased that we have at last got a clear answer to that. But I want to reject completely and totally the assertion made by the Minister and confirmed by the Chief Minister in the course of the debate just past, that in some way this has already been made clear by the Government. It has not been made clear.
The Chief Minister in particular referred to the question I asked last week in which I sought a simple answer to that question. I think this is worth quoting back because I know the Chief Minister and others frequently rise in this place and indignantly explain to you, Mr Speaker, that the questions that have been asked from this side of the chamber have indeed been answered. That cry is often heard from the Chief Minister particularly, but the fact is it is rarely true.
I want to quote from the question and answer on 26 October in which that point was made very clear. I asked the Minister:
Will the Minister confirm that this principle -
that is the one we have been debating today, that preschools will not close unless the school community agrees -
applies to preschools, and will he confirm that no preschool will close unless the preschool community agrees?
The Minister replied:
There are a number of distinctions between preschool education and early childhood education in the schooling system as it is presently structured.
He went on with a page of, with respect, irrelevancies in this regard. Half-way through that page I took a point of order. I explained that the Minister was not addressing the question I had asked. You, in your great wisdom, Mr Speaker, asked the Minister to answer the question. The Minister thanked you. He then went on to say, in much the same vein, that the essential distinction between preschool education and schools is that they are different management systems. He further said:
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