Page 2416 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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School - very substantial costs to relocate. Perhaps you have not heard about the Theodore Street centre with the behaviourally disturbed children and the very specific requirements they have for relocation, which are consequently fairly expensive. You add all these up and take them away from your $2m, and then add on the buses too, the extra cost of that, although you have not specified what buses you will be providing. You have got a figure that is in the red. There are no savings. That is this year. I can see as you go on, year after year, maybe something will turn up, but it will not ever be anything very much. So, what budget savings are you going to make next year? They are not there. From closing schools there are no budget savings at all, but there is an enormous amount of damage to the children who are in those schools - an enormous amount of damage to those poor little kids. I will say more about that tomorrow.
Along with it, of course, there is the damage to the community. Ms Maher, who is listening, went to a meeting at the OEC some little time ago. There we heard some very impressive data about the social consequences of closing a school. We heard just how integral they are to the planning in this community. Unfortunately Mr Humphries was not there. Ms Maher, I hope you gave him a full report. I hope you did, because while I had some appreciation, the extent of the planning that goes into our suburban life and the central importance of that school was still an eye-opener to me.
Mr Acting Speaker, it has become quite clear that school closures will not bring savings. We understand - as our budget faced last year - the financial problems of this Territory. It is no good simply saying, "We have got to save money". We understood that and you approved our budget. You voted for it. You put your hands up for it. But closing schools will not help you in those savings. It is a fruitless exercise and it is about time you realised it. Even if down the track, year by year, as you get over those first year costs, there is a small saving, it is not a saving that justifies the cost you are putting the community to. It does not justify what you do - the distress you cause to so many children: it does not justify the damage to many fine educational programs and, of course, it is negative in its impact on the social infrastructure of suburbs, the viability of small shopping centres and, a matter I do not press but nevertheless some people out there appreciate, the damage it does to the valuations of their property.
If there are savings they do not justify the very great damage that you will be causing. There is no benefit to the Government. It should not proceed. Above all, it should consider the children. It should consider the children and the future of this Territory.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.32): This is a fairly predictable response from the
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