Page 2951 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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Government has basically forced the ACT Government, and indeed the Follett Government before it, to take certain measures. When the Federal Government gave the Territory self-government, it did so with the intention, among others, of saving itself money; so that step was very popular outside the Territory. I believe the Federal Government owes us about $796m. Perhaps if it paid that and was willing to fund the Territory to keep us living in the style to which we had become accustomed - put money in a hollow log, which Mr Humphries' answer referred to - we could do such things as keep Royal Canberra Hospital and not close any schools.
But the fact of the matter is that the Territory - and this occurred even before self-government - has been put on a much more stringent financial footing than that which we had been used to in the past. This has been done to get us in line with the States, and I do not think any Federal government of any persuasion is going to change that. Indeed I think that is fairly obvious too, when one looks at what the Federal Labor Government did in 1988. It was the first one to start closing schools - and more of that later.
I will deal with schools and then health. Firstly, we have to look at what other governments are doing. The Victorian Labor Party recognises this. Mr Humphries has said they are planning amalgamations that might affect 600 schools - not the seven or so that we are talking about here today. The Tasmanian Labor Government tried to close 27 schools, and Tasmania is not much bigger than us.
The Canberra Times, it has been said, acknowledged that school closures are sad but necessary. This Labor Party last year tried to close preschools, and I am sure that, if we did not now have an Alliance Government and the ACT Labor Party was responsible for running the Territory, it would be doing exactly the same thing as this Minister is doing now. Indeed, the ALP promise, made in the heat of this current debate, to reopen schools is probably something it will renege on and live to regret. I will be fascinated to see what happens if we do get a Labor government after the next election. That will be quite interesting, given that I think privately this Labor Party and many of its members are very very happy to see Mr Humphries make the hard decisions that have to be made.
I also want to talk about a few points about our school systems and about the school closures. The Opposition has said that the neighbourhood school concept - there is a primary school in every suburb - is one of the beauties of the Canberra education system. Firstly, I think the Opposition's Federal colleagues decided that that simply could no longer continue when, in 1987 and 1988, they closed Woden Valley High School and, I think, about five primary schools as well. This was something they clearly recognised had to occur.
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