Page 1903 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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beginning to wonder whether Mr Humphries really understands the concept of quality at all, or what he means by quality. I shall finish this speech by asking him to state for us what he means by quality education. He now has a few minutes to think about that and prepare an answer.
Historically, it is a highly evolved system which has been developed by parents. What we have seen is first the Labor Government and now this Liberal Government setting about the dismantling of the system that was developed by parents and bringing back a hierarchical system with full control in the hands of the Minister and his bureaucracy. That changing face of education is most obvious when we see references to the parents as "clients", whereas during the existence of the former Schools Authority parents were always regarded as "partners".
This is most significant and I think it is important that people should realise the difference in concept between parents as partners and parents as clients because it is about power. Parents as partners means a sharing of power; parents as clients indicates that the power lies with the department and the Minister, who will give the clients what they want to give them. That is a major move from what this system was all about. If we have the most highly evolved and excellent system, why do we want to drag it down in this way to the level of other States?
Mr Humphries has now come into the chamber. Did you hear the question that I posed earlier in my speech, Mr Humphries? I will repeat it later, but I wanted to give you enough warning. My question was: what do you really mean by "quality of education"? It is a term that you have used quite often, especially when you talk about retaining the quality of education. That is something that I would like you to quantify, qualify and explain for us in your reply.
I turn to the question of the ACT budget. It seems to be very difficult for us to find figures in terms of the ACT budget. We hear about 18 per cent overfunding from the Grants Commission and serious other overfunding since that time, despite some of the changes that have been made. That is an overfunding compared to the States.
I think it is reasonable for us to ask how our States compare with other Western countries. Are we overfunded compared with the rest of the world? Our current wave of thinking is in terms of being the clever country. If we are going to be the clever country, we cannot consider dragging ourselves down to the level of other places. We cannot be dragged down by the Grants Commission or by the Federal Government if that moves us further down the hierarchy of Western countries in terms of the funds that we spend on education and the quality of education that we return to our children.
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