Page 3626 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
My colleagues and I propose today to talk about the social impact that these closures will have. That social impact to date has not been a particular matter of concern to the Government, although the Minister has incorporated it, or some mention of it, in his reference to Mr Hudson.
To date the Government's attitude has been entirely one of money needs. It says, "We have to save money and there is no other way of doing it that we consider satisfactory, and, as for schools, we can capitalise on those. We can close them. We can knock them down and in most cases sell off the site". But the social impact of what the Government is doing is a factor causing the community to fight so vehemently for its schools. It encompasses a whole range of aspects that this Government is determined not to consider.
The sites of schools in the suburbs, and their sizes as well, are matters that have been considered carefully in planning. Over a number of years this planning has been refined so that we have been building schools that are the best that can be provided and that give the best service to students and to the community. Primary schools provide the core of planning in Canberra suburbs, especially since the early 1960s. They are carefully placed to ensure safety, to ensure access, for community amenity and for social cohesion. To take away any school is to change the nature of that suburb, and to mount the all-out attack on our schools that this Government has is to change Canberra fundamentally.
Those schools were designed to benefit our students, their families and the community. I might also add that they were designed - and these are terms that I know the Government understands - for cost efficiency. The way our suburbs have been designed saves the community and saves this Government money. For example, 70 to 80 per cent of the students in our government schools find their own way to school - a figure much greater in the ACT than you will find anywhere, except perhaps in some small country towns.
Mr Jensen: Where does that come from, Bill?
MR WOOD: I will give you the quote from Mr Gilchrist. In doing so, there is no excess fuel for parents to make large detours in their cars. No additional buses are needed as happens in some other places. The child-care facilities, the child health facilities are adjacent; so there is no duplication of trips. The recreation areas for much of the family recreation are close, and the shopping is close. It is economic. The planning might not save money just in the education budget alone; across the whole spectrum of the budget it saves this Government money. The closures, in contrast, will bring diseconomies, although the Government is being rather mean, rather stinting, in what it is doing to accommodate those closures. I regret that the Government has not been able to match the planning that has gone into our suburbs and our schools over very many years.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .