Page 2723 - Week 09 - Thursday, 9 August 1990
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Preschools are non-compulsory and part-time, and considerable parent help is required to keep them operating. We need to observe that distinction. The Minister in the Follett Government undertook to provide a thorough report on preschools and engaged in wide community consultation. We had to look at preschools. At this stage we have agreed to trial collocation of preschools, a suggestion arising out of the task force report. We appreciate that many of those preschools are located adjacent to primary schools, and where that occurs it is fair to relocate - or collocate is the in word - the preschool with the primary school. No great inconvenience arises from that to the parents in that community. They do not have to travel any farther in order to get their children to the preschool. So we are agreeable with that.
We would have different attitudes concerning freestanding preschools that are farther from a primary school. We want to consider each one of those on its merits, so we will reserve judgment about the - - -
Mr Humphries: You won't have the chance. The agreement is with the Pre-School Society, not with you.
MR WOOD: I will certainly be commenting on what you say.
Mr Humphries: That is your prerogative.
MR WOOD: If you wish me to. You may not wish me to do so; I know you wish to avoid it. The Minister said that options were presented in the task force report. Indeed, they are. But if he closes a preschool after the removal of the children for a trial collocation he effectively removes an option. There would be no option because there would be nowhere to go back to. The trial would become a certainty.
I need to make some comments arising from recent statements made by the Minister about school closures, which again are referred to in this MPI. In the last week I have been reading through Hansard and reflecting on the debate, if that is what it has been, and on the considerable number of public meetings that he and I have attended, at the request of various communities. It becomes quite clear that throughout all this time the Minister has been evading the debate. He has been avoiding the issues at all times. This has been his stratagem.
He said constantly, "I will tell you the answer to that when I know which schools are to be closed". It has been said in this parliament over and over again in response to questions and in the debates - we have heard it again today - and time and time again at the various meetings that he has addressed he has answered a question, or not answered it, by saying, "When the time comes I will tell you". The time is long overdue, but we are still not being told. That has been his strategy, the way of getting
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