Page 1817 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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Mr Speaker, the Labor position is that we recognise the value of education. Our policy on which we went to the election is that no school should close. We are not dealing with a budget issue. As Mr Wood has shown, the closure of schools will not save money; it may cost money; and in fact the money is there to maintain our schools. We have the Supply Bill before us today, Mr Humphries.
What is lacking on behalf of this Government is any sense of priority. The debate that we have at the moment is not about education; it is about ideology and it is about selling off schools for their real estate value. That has been made abundantly clear. In government, the Labor team stood by our promise not to close schools and we will continue to stand by that promise when we return to government.
The stupid thing about school closures is that they just will not work. People are not animals that can be herded from one school to another. In fact, when the Page school closed, as I think Mr Moore said, the students would not go to their new school. So it made an absolute mess of the well laid out plans of the education bureaucracy. That will happen again if further schools are closed. People want some degree of diversity in their schooling system. They want a mixture of small schools and large schools. It is possible to have quality education regardless of the size of school. There is a call for small schools. There are a great number of small schools.
I think it is absolutely typical of this Government that, on this crucial issue, there has been no real consultation with the community. The Minister has dictated what will occur; namely, the closure of schools. He has made that decision without any reference whatsoever to the community. This is extremely unfortunate because the community has shown itself only too willing to discuss the future of education in the ACT.
The community is willing to make a positive contribution to that debate. People do understand the issues, they understand the budget, they understand the ACT's financial position, and they are prepared to debate those issues. But they cannot debate with a gun at their heads. It is unfair to expect them to debate the future of ACT education when they have already been told that 25 schools will close. What sort of a debate is that? I say again, Mr Speaker, that the community is willing and able to debate the ACT's educational and budgetary needs. I wish that Mr Humphries and the Government would accept that, accept that the community has a role to play here and a valuable contribution to make.
I call on Mr Humphries to drop his proposal and to allow debate to take place without the threat, as is currently being placed on people, of total destruction of the current neighbourhood school system. People cannot debate in that
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