Page 4259 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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There has been a most lively and creative series of arts and theatre programs. I am thinking of Jigsaw Theatre in relation to schools, Skylark Theatre in schools and exciting productions in many of our colleges. This is not new; it was not new this year or last year. This has been going on, and it continues and it is exciting. There has been continued commitment to foreign language programs through the LOTE scheme - languages other than English scheme. A special consultant was appointed this year and the special programs went ahead in that area. There has been active and caring participation in the problem of illiteracy, and considerable discussion over the questions of literacy and numeracy. That, of course, has especially happened during the past year.
Some of the attack has been directed at Mr Humphries himself. I will not go over that ground, but I do wish to be fair and to ask all members of the Assembly to be fair in recognising that Mr Humphries himself has been open to members of the public and has been assiduous and conscientious in visiting schools. He has been highly involved in meetings, often meetings at which he was standing in the firing line. He and I and members of the Residents Rally have been here weekend after weekend. We see each other on Saturdays and Sundays, as these groups come to see us, and I think they also come to see the Opposition. I only want to say here that an attack can well be mounted, and you may well wish to do that; but I do not think you should attack Mr Humphries on the grounds that he did not care, or did not go to meetings, or did not involve himself with the public in all those ways. He did.
In most matters - and here I am obviously excluding the question of school closures, where he and I have had obvious differences over the past six months - he and I worked amicably and cooperatively together on a whole range of issues. And all those issues are still there. Those good things continue. Those school excellences continue.
Finally, I come to the Hudson report. I ask the Opposition to consider that report. The initiative for that came from the Residents Rally, that is, members of the Alliance Government. But I want to stress that this initiative was then accepted and carried forward by the Chief Minister, and then was administered by Mr Humphries as Minister for Education. That is to say, an inquiry which, in the end, has a good deal of criticism contained within it was a product of the Alliance Government. What you are looking at then is a Government which saw problems and recognised divisiveness - and I accept Mr Moore,s comment about the title of the report. We then did something about it through the Hudson inquiry and the very considerable discussions we have had over the last week. I am not necessarily enthusiastic about all elements of the Hudson report. It would be very hard, would it not, to find a report where you would enthuse about every part? But I do wish to point out the following, and these matters relate to the administration of education in the ACT.
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