Page 3484 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 September 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
said that, over the last few years schools such as the Catholic school at Isabella Plains and Trinity school at Wanniassa have been granted land free of charge to establish what are clearly soundly based and well respected schools.
Those schools, of course, provide a service to the community in exactly the same way as public schools do. Let us be clear: if it were not for the private school sector the public school sector would have to pick up the tab. I would suggest that that is one of the reasons that throughout Australia this issue has progressively been taken away and hosed down to a certain degree. But there seems to be some attempt to bring the issue of public versus private back into the community view again, and I would suggest that that is only a very divisive action that is most unfortunate.
The aim of the Government, and I would have thought the Opposition, is to ensure equality in education and to treat all schools in an even and equitable manner. The Government, as the total landowner in the ACT, can best support this objective by providing land to allow the schools to provide full educational facilities. Let us be clear on what has happened before this beat-up by Mr Wood. I notice he has left the chamber now; so clearly he is not - there he is, over here. You have joined our side, have you, Bill? You have seen the light and come across. Maybe that is the only way you can get re-elected, but that is another story. The Government can best support this objective by providing land to allow the schools to provide full educational facilities.
At this point of time, all that has occurred - and I remind Mr Wood and his colleagues, and Mr Moore of this - is that the school has made an application for the addition to its current land of an adjacent block. As a result of that application, the Government has asked the planning authorities to consider whether or not a change to the present restrictive planning for the block should be made. That is the reason why this document, "Draft Proposal for Public Comment, Deakin, section 49, block 11", was put out in June 1990. As the Chief Minister has already indicated, it was provided to every member of the Assembly, including Mr Wood and Mr Connolly.
Mr Connolly, in an interjection across the chamber, seemed to indicate that he had read it before. But one has to wonder why at the time that it came in the Opposition made no comments on it. Why now? If members opposite were so concerned about it, why not at the time when it was quite clear what the proposal for the change was going to be all about? It was very clear that the existing policy plan for that section was to be changed from diplomatic to community facilities. And it was clear that the site that we are talking about, block 11, was to be developed for sporting facilities. So the members of the Opposition knew about it three months ago, but they chose not to do anything about it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .