Page 4254 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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I have to confess - and Mr Wood has made this allegation - that I began my task as Minister for Education with less hands-on experience in the education sector than Mr Wood possesses on the basis of his having worked in the ACT education system. However, I did have some other compensating advantages: one was the fact that we were prepared to undertake a very comprehensive process of discussing the issues with the community and, like it or not, the process of discussing with the community criteria on which governments would proceed to close schools was a very comprehensive process of public debate. A great many members of the community took advantage of that public consultation debate to contribute their views and to bring them to the attention of the Government, but apparently that does not satisfy Mr Wood. During that time I have also had the advantage of an education administration which was prepared to work very hard to achieve objectives of a kind which would produce positive outcomes for education in the future.
Mr Wood pretends that this Government has imposed its felonious and misguided policies of closing schools on to a reluctant system, and I have to say that on many counts that is wrong. There is evidence, not only at the bureaucratic level but also at the school level itself, that problems have arisen in the Territory due to the nature of some of our schools.
Mr Connolly: It is the "close our schools" lobby. There are posters everywhere saying, "Close my school".
MR HUMPHRIES: I have to say to Mr Connolly that there were teachers in the ACT public education system who said that some of our schools were too small. That was the view put to me.
Mrs Grassby: They were probably all members of the Liberal Party.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, they were not members of the Liberal Party, Mrs Grassby. They were genuine teachers, people with genuine interests in the education system of this Territory. You can belittle that if you want, but the fact is that it is true, and if you did a bit more talking to people in the community you would strike some such people as well.
The decision to close some schools has not been based on political imperatives. It has been based on the sound and reasoned advice of a person who is not likely to give advice to a non-Labor government on the basis of any preconceived political imperatives or ideological predisposition towards our point of view. Whatever denigrations and contempts those opposite might heap on Mr Hudson in a cowardly fashion - - -
Mr Duby: They cannot call him a dry Liberal.
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