Page 2818 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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the ACT because the links are not there between other institutions in the ACT and that school. I would like to see this clinical school established, if only because it would provide those links and that strengthening of the bond between what happens in that school and what is going on in the medical practices of the ACT.
I think there are many benefits. I, unlike the Opposition, am not prepared to dismiss this out of hand. It deserves serious consideration. We will give it our in principle support and await the outcome of the evidence. If that evidence points to the fact that Canberra should have such a school, we will support it to the hilt and will provide the necessary funding.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Collaery) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Education
MR BERRY (9.29): In rising in this adjournment debate, I want to focus again on the issue of education, because it is this Government opposite that has set about ripping the heart out of our city by way of its attack on the education system and its closure of schools. Now there is no way of denying that what the Government is on about is attack on the heart of Canberra.
It is timely that I rise tonight because the Higgins school action group is in the gallery. Our first-born went to Higgins school for a short time, although that was some time ago, so I have a link with the school. Later on our children went to Holt school where many of the Higgins school pupils are expected to go.
What I find angering, if you like, about this whole decision is the lack of proper consultation and concern for the school communities and the communities of places like Higgins. Higgins was established around the late 1960s and early 1970s and of course it grew from there into a mature suburb of Canberra. It had a mature primary school which was ensured of a strong and increasing enrolment well into the future. I should say that that increasing enrolment was never refuted by the department, yet it moved on to close that school. There has been a concerted response by the Higgins school community in reaction to the Government's decision to close that school.
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