Page 1831 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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than educational. In the past he has declined to acknowledge that. Mr Collaery, are you telling Mr Humphries that, if schools are closed, families will need two incomes or two cars in order to get children to the more distant schools? Are you going to provide the buses and pay their bus fares? Or is that additional cost to parents - bus fares and change of school uniform - going to be a charge on your welfare budget as disadvantaged families come forward?
Mr Collaery: I am glad you recognise it.
MR WOOD: Well, I hope Mr Humphries recognises it because these are factors that have to be considered. By closing schools, Mr Collaery, you can increase the level of disadvantage. We have a system of preschools, which by and large we like to locate next to or near to primary schools so that parents can walk with their children during the day.
Mr Collaery: Did you congratulate the PRB for the recommendation on preschools?
MR WOOD: Well, the board had a couple of options there. I hope you do not go down all those paths. What are you going to do about disadvantage for those scout groups that have to go some considerable further distance in order - - -
Mr Humphries: You are exaggerating.
MR WOOD: But you cannot spell it out for me. Do not keep interjecting; you cannot spell out a thing. Some scout groups will have to travel two, three, four or five kilometres further in the dark, especially at this time of the year, in order to continue their activities.
What about disadvantage in Mr Jensen's territory, down there in Tuggeranong? Are you going to disadvantage parents there by not providing a preschool in some suburbs? That is part of disadvantage. These are the aspects of disadvantage, Mr Collaery, that you ought to be considering.
There is a whole range of other criteria that Mr Humphries ought to be reviewing. I have mentioned just some of them in this place before. We have raised this other one of disadvantage today, but there is a whole host of them that he has been most reluctant to take any account of.
Mr Kaine: Like the basic Labor one: no school can be touched. Is that a good criterion?
MR WOOD: That is a very good criterion. Mr Collaery said that there was no split in the Alliance Government over this matter.
Mr Collaery: There certainly is not.
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