Page 2427 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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The implication was that half the students could stay in each school and those spaces could be used for an economic purpose. That may well be the case where those spaces can be used for an economic purpose, as is the reference in this report which Mr Moore referred to. The simple fact is that they are not rentable spaces and that is the difference between what the report says and what Mr Moore imputed.
Mr Moore continually referred to the references by Dr Perkins. At our instigation, which again seems totally in contrast to the claim that these decisions were made with a total disregard for community interest or lack of care for accurate planning, Dr Perkins came and reported to the members of the Government on various implications of this closure of schools.
Let us not hide the fact that Dr Perkins is a very well qualified and competent econometrics expert. She, along with many other people, maintains that the costs involved in closing 25 schools and the subsequent disorganisation to the community that that would entail, given today's current circumstances, makes the decision to close that many schools uneconomic. However, and I must repeat this, when asked specific questions Dr Perkins admitted that there was a certain threshold number of students at a school below which it became uneconomic to keep those students there. In other words, the marginal costs of operating those schools rose dramatically as the number of students at the school declined below a certain threshold number. Dr Perkins has never disputed that.
Mr Moore: What are the numbers?
MR DUBY: The numbers are in the order of between 280 and 300 students.
Mr Moore: What nonsense.
MR DUBY: You cannot quote the expert and then refute the figures that I am sure Dr Perkins will support again publicly.
Mr Moore: I am sure you are quoting them out of context, Mr Duby.
MR DUBY: That is not quoting out of context; that is the academic figure. Anyway, Mr Acting Speaker, as I have said, Dr Perkins is a respected econometric expert and one whose views were seriously listened to and seriously taken into consideration by the members of this Government in coming to a position.
But, more to the point, I want to go to the ludicrous situation of this supposed matter of public importance. It is a matter clearly based on a simple pack of untruths. Mr Humphries went through the issue that there had been a
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