Page 2942 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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The education basis of the argument starts from the need to save money. Of course, the figures have been challenged. The figures that the Government originally came up with were incompetent. They were challenged by Dr Perkins, who has made a tremendous contribution to this debate, and to the ACT community. Then, having debated those figures, a new set of figures is now held in confidence by Mr Humphries. He is unprepared to go to the community with them. He has launched out - - -
Mr Humphries: Yet.
MR MOORE: Yes, I quite accept Mr Humphries' interjection that he is unprepared to go to the community yet. And, of course, the reason the "yet" comes in is that the thing will become a fait accompli. Once he delays it long enough, he will have his education department organised in such a way that it will be very difficult to reverse the attack that he has made on the education system.
So, the longer he can hold out in not giving the figures, the better off he is and the less chance the community has to challenge those figures. The reason is that he is incompetent, and that is why the censure motion is here - because those figures and the methodology that has been brought about reflect his own incompetence.
It is even more reflected in what is, of course, a patronising and paternalistic approach. The only thing that we could compare it to is in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland. Joh Bjelke-Humphries here is a person who can just say, "Well, don't you worry about that. Let me worry about the figures and it will be all right. That is my responsibility" - and Canberra will tend to go down the gurgler in the same way that Queensland did under Joh. I say "go down the gurgler" in the sense that those who can least afford it become much worse off while those with money become far better off. That is, of course, a standard Liberal-Alliance-Rally-and bits and pieces approach.
I have on many occasions asked Mr Humphries for a definition of quality in terms of education and on only one occasion in this house has he attempted to make his definition. When he did he did not mention children at all, because they are the ones who are left out of this debate, of course; they are the least important as far as the Alliance is concerned. His definition was about choice. If he wishes to remain with his definition of quality of education about choice, then I can tell him that members of the communities of Higgins, Weetangera, Cook and so forth are not likely to believe that they are going to be left with an expanded choice, or even an equivalent choice. Yet he constantly says, "We are going to retain the quality of education. We will retain the choice". Leave the schools open if you are going to stay with your own definition and not just rely on economic arguments alone.
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