Page 1935 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
what Dr Kinloch said was true or not true, and I am not going to answer that question until I see what Dr Kinloch said for myself.
School Consolidations
MR CONNOLLY: My question is directed to the Minister for Education. Minister, you stated last week at Taylor Primary School that new criteria would be released on school closures. Will those new criteria contain criteria previously put forward to you by the Education Department but not released for public consultation? When will the new criteria you referred to be released and what consultation processes will follow that release?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, there seems to be some confusion on the part of Mr Connolly about the way in which this process is proceeding. The whole purpose of putting out criteria for public consultation and debate entails hearing what the community has to say about those criteria. When Mr Connolly asks me whether the criteria contain particular things when they have been amended or modified by the community, he rather assumes that I am not going to be paying attention to what the community says about what is in those criteria. If that were the case, there would hardly have been any point in my engaging, in the last three weeks and the further two weeks, in public consultation and debate about this issue.
Mr Kaine: That is what the Labor Party did though, you see, so they think you are going to do the same.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is quite understandable, and I think that people might expect from experience of the previous Government that we are not about real consultation but in fact we are. We are here to listen to what the community has to say about the criteria. Therefore, I cannot tell Mr Connolly or members of the Opposition what the criteria are going to look like finally, because that is what we have put out to the community for its comment. That is what the community will be telling us about. Those additional criteria will be released for the public to see and those criteria will be the criteria on which the Government then proceeds to close schools. Naturally, the community will make comment on those criteria. However, as I have indicated before, at some point the Government has to make a decision based on those criteria. There will not be an endless round of criteria, discussion, closure, criteria, discussion, closure, et cetera, et cetera.
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; a bit of brevity might help with the answers to these questions.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am sorry that Mr Berry feels the heat so badly.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .