Page 2962 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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We proceeded to spend many thousands of taxpayers' dollars analysing the figures that Dr Perkins produced. We went to enormous trouble to carefully check the figures and assumptions made by both ourselves as Education Department officials and officials of the ACT Treasury. The result of that work is represented in part by this document I have here, the ACT Treasury's financial analysis of school consolidation, a response to the issues that Dr Frances Perkins raises. Hundreds of pages of analysis, facts and figures were produced to Dr Frances Perkins. It is rubbish to suggest the Government has not tried to do adequate homework on this issue.
Mr Wood: Are you going to table the document?
MR HUMPHRIES: The document has been in the public forum for some time. I believe Mr Wood has a copy of it. If a copy is not available, I will produce another one. That is our response to Dr Frances Perkins. Dr Perkins has not been satisfied with that, mind you. That is not to say the Government is wrong and she is right or vice versa, but it does mean the Government has chosen to address the issue she raised fairly and squarely. When decisions were announced a couple of weeks ago, representations were made by a number of schools arguing that we had made mistakes.
Rather than duck that and say, "No, we are infallible; we are getting on with our decision", we decided, again properly, to consider whether that was the case, and as a result the Government has entered into a dialogue with a number of schools. I have seen every single school group that has come to me seeking to discuss the issue - or at least I have made arrangements to see them if I have not seen them so far. I spent most of last weekend talking to school groups about the issues raised in our papers, and I cannot be accused of being narrow-minded about those issues.
The fact is the Opposition puts us in a no-win situation. If we listen to the community and adjust our conduct to the extent we feel we are able to, consistent with our decision to save money in the education budget, then we have no confidence in our plans, so they say. If we do not, of course, we are being inflexible and ruthless and not listening to the community. That is why this Government has chosen to turn around this motion to make it one of censure of the Opposition. I think the Australian Labor Party deserves censure because it has engaged in a series of public deceptions on this very question. It has sought to whip up public hostility and anxiety; it has fed every doubt and every fear in the community through its comments.
It is true that many problems will occur as a result of these changes; it is true that people will be inconvenienced; it is true that the community as a whole has a challenge to face. But to suggest that they should do so with the kinds of scaremongering the Opposition is
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