Page 1912 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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schooling in the ACT government and private sectors. The Rally will re-establish a coordinating policy body for all schools and TAFE. Certainly there is evidence of a conjoint process within the political groupings of this Alliance. Opposition members cannot deny that. They can read the little pink booklet, which Mr Connolly is now doing, and they can get some good ideas from that. They will see that this supposed vast ideological breach is wrong.
We heard the former Chief Minister, in her new style, which Mr Kaine and I have both witnessed recently, giving a press interview last night. She deliberately altered the impact and the content of a vote taken here in the Assembly yesterday. Ms Follett said - and her words are on the record - that the Rally had abandoned all principle and it was going along with the school closure program. There was not a vote taken on that matter yesterday. Her words were a reflection on a vote taken in the chamber, a most improper reflection. There was certainly a very clear and deliberate attempt to mislead the public in that interview she gave to the ABC. It was shameful.
On the same day, I believe another press release was issued saying that the Chief Minister had done something he had not even said, let alone done. That is a measure of how the Labor Party is operating out of this Assembly - cheap shots and sharp, smooth little moves on media releases. You will not see the Alliance Government grouping doing that. We are happy to debate out front all the issues between us. You have heard Mr Humphries speak, you have heard me speak, and you know that our education policies are conjoint - that there should be a full and wide-ranging debate, on budget grounds and on quality of education grounds, about the restructuring of our education system in the light of the current demographic changes.
I endorse the release of this statement by Minister Humphries and I suggest that, if the Opposition is capable of constructive debate, it should move on and see that this Territory's education system continues to be excellent.
MR BERRY (11.23): The first matter I wish to deal with is the irrelevant Deputy Chief Minister, because the Residents Rally is a spent force; it is finished. We were told that last night by a member of the Residents Rally executive, and there was another demonstration of it this morning on ABC radio when Mr Collaery said that he was running with the Liberal agenda. That is quite clear because, as he read out from that relic of the past - the Residents Rally policy - the Rally remains committed to the idea of neighbourhood schools. Now it clearly supports the closure of them in accordance with the Liberal philosophy espoused in the outline of priorities for improved public sector management, which says:
In this context the neighbourhood school concept inevitably demands expenditure of resources for
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