Page 3122 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 12 September 1990
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although the members of the Rally Executive seem to have remembered.
The Fisher preschool will be the last community facility left in Fisher, and I will ask the Minister to look very very carefully at that himself, since that seems to be one of the next steps in their decimation of the ACT education system, and the sorts of things that we value.
As to any report that looks into this issue, whether it is the report of an individual person and you use your numbers that way, or whether it is an Assembly report, basically the members of all the school communities have done a tremendous amount of work already and can pull that work together very quickly. I think it was very sensible of Mr Stevenson to suggest that a report be here by 20 November. Although that would normally be considered a very short time, it is worth while noting that the community reaction is well and truly prepared and the figures can be questioned.
It also should be pointed out that the 59-page document which you refer to has actually 15 pages on justification and the rest would be appendixes about enrolments and so forth - all of which are quite important, I accept - and the introduction. I think we could say that from page 11 to page 26 is the justification, and, Mr Humphries, you can be quite sure that these justifications, as minimal as they are, will be challenged, and they are challengeable, and that will go on.
The sort of forum that will give it some credibility is if an Assembly committee with the normal power of a parliamentary committee looks into this, and we can expect to have some credibility for its report. It will allow not only a full report, but also a minority report. That in itself provides extra credibility for such a report. With that in mind I urge, particularly members of the Residents Rally, whose executive has made its position very clear, and I urge you to support this motion by Mr Stevenson.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (12.04): Mr Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to stand and speak on this issue, and I am delighted to see parents from Weetangera, and possibly other places, present in the chamber. I trust that they will leave with a better perception of this Assembly and its operations than is promoted constantly by the Opposition.
Of course, in particular the Lyons parents have spoken to most of us in the Assembly and they will no doubt be delighted at the announcement by Minister Humphries that there will be an independent inquiry. In that respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, there was a voice from the other side that made a mockery of the fact that a single person would be appointed to head that enquiry. May I remind the house of some of the most important single person-led inquiries in this country. Ross Garnaut's recent report on our trade
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