Page 3480 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 September 1990
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as those opposite have made the assumption - that because parents are willing to pay fairly steep amounts to send their children to that school they must therefore be rich; that they are on the gravy train. That is not the case. The people who send their kids to that school often find it very hard to find the money to do that, and I think that rather than kicking them in the guts, as those opposite would suggest we do, we should be supporting them.
I have a fundamentally different view from that of Mr Connolly. I do not see this matter in the same political terms as Mr Connolly sees it. I think the Australian Labor Party will suffer very heavily when views like this on its part become well known in the community. I think that when people see what members opposite are saying about non-government schooling they will lose a substantial number of votes. The ACT population is exceptional in that one in three school children in the ACT go to non-government schools. That is an extremely high proportion by Australian standards - the highest proportion.
But I remind those opposite that, even though it is only one in three children who go to non-government schools, one in every two households have children attending non-government schools. So half of all the households with children in the ACT have an interest in non-government schooling. Those households are not going to be enamoured of the comments made by the Opposition about giving resources to assist the provision of non-government education. The fact of life is that we ought to be providing resources where they are most needed and that half empty public schools do not contribute to the quality of government education in the Territory. The assistance that we can provide to other schools, be they government or non-government, to continue to provide a high quality education should not be begrudged by anybody in this chamber.
The policy relating to the leasing of land to private schools has evolved over a large number of years. It is based on the assumption that we, as a Government, ought to provide assistance as appropriate to organisations providing educational services in the Territory. The grant of leases to schools is quite specific inasmuch as the leases are granted purely for school purposes. The land use policy reflects the purpose clause of the lease. The policy of granting schools to non-government organisations has had bipartisan support over a large number of years. And I do not believe the comments made by those opposite will mean that this is going to change. I believe it will continue to be the case and that they are merely seeking, on this occasion, to win a few cheap points by pretending that they are in some way supporting government schooling by opposing the grant of some land to a non-government school.
I think the examples of previous grants made by Labor governments have been well aired in this place. I can add
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