Page 3481 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 September 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
that the Administration of the ACT is presently negotiating with the Presbyterian Church for a college in the suburb of Gordon, and it is anticipated that this school will also obtain a grant of land free of charge for school purposes. This is, of course, provided that it meets all the usual requirements. In those circumstances, I would like to know on what criteria the Opposition says that we ought not to be granting land. If that particular organisation were to find land in some more central location in Canberra - some inner part of Canberra - would the Opposition object? On what basis do members opposite say that Deakin is not acceptable but perhaps Weston is? The value of the land at Weston, I would think, would be a very great deal. I went to the opening of that Rudolf Steiner school at Weston only a few weeks ago.
I think there is ample evidence that this is a cheap political ploy on the part of the Opposition, and I think members of the public should reject it.
MR MOORE (3.48): Mr Speaker, it is ironic that the very leasehold system that the Liberals object to is the same system that provides the wherewithal for such a conservative Government to be able to provide land not just to the Church of England Girls Grammar School but also to other private institutions such as churches and other private schools throughout Canberra. Of course, nowhere else in Australia would private schools be granted land in the way that it is done in Canberra, and that is one of the positive aspects of our leasehold system.
What we have here, of course, is a social justice issue, because education is about social justice. It is about individuals having the ability to move in terms of their social status; it gives them social mobility. That is the critical and most important factor of government education. If government education is not of the very highest quality and is not accessible to people, that form of social mobility is whittled away - and the more people who are involved in private education, the more marginalised public education becomes.
Mr Humphries is saying that it is a situation of just ordinary people, single mothers and so forth, sending their children, at great sacrifice, to this particular school; and, granted, that is a choice they make. But people ought not to be forced into the position of making that choice. Yet that is exactly what the school closures issue is doing to people. They are no longer certain that their school is secure; they are no longer certain that the school to which they send their children will not, at some stage or another, be the next one to be attacked in the next round of closures. That is one of the insidious parts of the whole school closure problem.
Let us take the perspective of the ordinary person that Mr Humphries referred to and look at how ordinary people see the whole situation that has arisen. They have been told
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .