Page 2414 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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grounds - and this from the people who would claim to be the competent financial managers.
Regrettably, it has taken the community and this side of the parliament to draw some other matters to the attention of Mr Humphries. He does not know of nor does he care about the wide range of social costs involved in this closure; the costs out of someone's pocket are not always easily seen. There is the change of habits; the parents who have to change the way they go to work - perhaps from a bus to a car. They have to change their timetables because they have to get their children some considerable further distance to school. The isolation of parents who do not have that centre to which they were formerly attached is a factor. The simple reorganisation of childcare is another. Of course, Mr Humphries would not realise that around every school there is a group of parents authorised to care for children. It is something he does not know about, but it is a cost.
The more obvious costs that he was at first not disposed to consider have had to be forced down his throat by other people; costs such as bussing costs, the cost of relocating transportables, the cost of refurbishing schools, or putting in road crossings and relocating existing tenants, to name just a few. These very substantial costs were not previously any part of the consideration.
Remember, time after time I stood up here and I said, "What's this going to cost? How much are you going to save?". Time after time the Minister said, "When we know what schools, we can more easily identify what the costs around each school will be". And now, of course, this has changed again today.
This should be a demonstration of good planning - that you know what you are on about and you know what the implications of what you do will be. But nowhere do we see this, and I do not think we are ever going to see it. When the budget turns up I do not think there will be anything in that either, because you have never gone down this path. Thankfully, Frances Perkins and others in the community have drawn your attention to some of these things. They have made you aware that there are costs attached to closing schools, but you do not want to consider them. You do not want to consider the clear, obvious economic costs, and the social costs are not part of anything that crosses your horizon at any time.
I recall the Minister saying some considerable time ago that we had to close 15 to 25 schools to produce the savings we needed. In the end he proposed six schools. Well, it was supposed to be six. I still do not know the real story of whether the joint party room voted for six, and then they were double-crossed, as some people seem to be suggesting afterwards, and the number finished up at nine or ten. Maybe you could explain that one day. But there seem to be some people on your side of the house who think they did not vote to close any more than six schools.
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