Page 2419 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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Mr Acting Speaker, there are real savings in this process. I need only to point to the fact that in 1988 when the previous Federal Australian Labor Party Government closed five schools on top of a high school closed at the end of 1987 real actual savings were produced in the education budget.
Mr Moore: How much?
MR HUMPHRIES: To answer Mr Moore's question, in the order of $1.2m in respect of the closures at the end of 1988, and about $400,000 I believe in respect of the closure at the end of 1987. These were real savings. I am not saying that there were no costs associated with them. The previous Government - that is the Federal Labor Government - no doubt took that into account. I understand that the savings referred to are savings calculated after the costs of providing new facilities in those new schools were put into the equation.
If that Government found that there were real savings to be made by closing schools, if it felt that was the case with all the advice on the hill, why can we not draw the same conclusion? Why is it wrong for us to close schools and right for them? The answer is that there is no difference.
Mr Wood sought an indication of our position on principle as far as education is concerned. I refer him to the Hansard of 20 March 1990, page 555, in which I made an extensive statement of the Alliance Government's position and philosophy on education provision in the ACT - page 555 et al. It is there.
Mr Kaine: It has not changed.
MR HUMPHRIES: It has not changed, as the Chief Minister accurately points out. Mr Wood also fails to be aware that many of the costs he talks about in respect of the relocation of facilities and the refurbishment of schools are, in fact, one-off costs. They are one-off costs whereas the savings made from the ceased operations of a number of surplus schools are recurrent savings. They accrue every year; each and every year after that saving is made and after that school is closed.
I think that the references in this matter of public importance to a number of things ought to be commented upon. Those opposite make all sorts of knee-jerk responses, all sorts of predictable and unfounded responses which I think we ought to examine very critically. First of all they say on the second line of this motion, or this matter, that there is - - -
Mr Kaine: This tirade.
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