Page 2413 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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behaviour brings discredit to us all. Inevitably also, this Assembly comes into greater disrepute when members break promises so wilfully and so blatantly.
Mr Collaery: What a load of nonsense.
MR WOOD: Well, you get up and explain how you can campaign to spend $7.2m extra, with no mention of closing schools, and then a year and a half later come in with what you are now doing. You explain that. You stand up and explain it, and you might tell me how you are explaining it to John Gagg. Of course, your way out of the problem is to let John Gagg take the public running while you meekly say yes to the Liberals; the Liberals who came into this parliament, pledged - as I recall Mr Humphries saying many times - to reform the system. He talked about testing students and standards in schools, and made some mention of scrutiny of expenditure, but nowhere in the debates I had with Mr Humphries and others did I ever hear suggestions of closing schools. Though, certainly, he indicated he would have to look at expenditure; there is no question about that.
The Liberals, at least, have some background that would justify their closure of schools, and it is that Liberal policy that is now ascendant. We have a group of very dry Liberals here who hold the Residents Rally captive in that joint party room upstairs that we hear so much about.
Mr Collaery: Little do you know.
MR WOOD: They hold you captive.
Mr Moore: And there will be five of them shortly.
MR WOOD: Five of them. The No Self Government Party - the Independents Group - simply do not care. It is not a part of their agenda at all. The problem for me - - -
Ms Maher: Take that back; I do care.
MR WOOD: I am pleased to hear that. Now do something about it.
The problem with all this debate from the Government is that its members cannot get beyond the economics. I suppose that is not surprising coming from Liberals, but it is incredible to me that in all this time in parliament - now a year and a half - and in all the time that this Government has been on the Government benches - that is about eight or nine months now - we have heard nothing from the Education Minister about a philosophy of education. Nowhere has he ever expressed educational aims, nowhere has he had a discussion about how our education system should be benefiting the children. Nowhere have we ever heard anything to suggest that he knows or that he cares about the education of children. We come back to decisions on economic grounds - and indeed, on spurious economic
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