Page 4374 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 21 November 1990
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Hudson. There is a decision that three schools that Hudson indicated ought to remain open will remain open; but there has been no clear statement from the Minister for Education about anything else arising from Hudson.
Mr Jensen: That is rubbish.
MR WOOD: Well, there is very little. There are a couple of things I will mention, Mr Jensen. It seems that you are satisfied that the Minister should put out a media statement of about five paragraphs arising from Hudson. You think that is an ample response to that report that your Government commissioned. That is the full extent of what we have. You seem satisfied with it. Do not pass it back now to the Minister for Education.
All that the Minister's media statement does is say that three schools will remain open and we are going to have a task force to look at certain things. That is what the Minister has said arising out of the Hudson report. Those three schools now to remain open were locked in under Hudson to his preferred option C. Option C had a whole range of other proposals. The Minister has not made it clear whether he has accepted the whole of option C. I doubt that he has. I think the schools and this Assembly deserve some greater statement from the Minister.
It is, of course, typical of the inept planning that we have seen all along. The Minister cannot seem to get anything together and is quite unable to make any sensible sort of statement. He certainly is not capable of making any statement that gives us any details of what he has been on about. Three schools will remain open. Does that mean, as Hudson required, that there is also to be a small schools policy? That was the Hudson requirement for keeping open Weetangera and Rivett. Is a small schools policy that part of the deal?
Ms Maher: That is why we set up that community committee to look at - - -
MR WOOD: No, it is not.
Ms Maher: It is.
MR WOOD: You have not specified a small schools policy. That committee has to look at three things. You might have a look at those and refresh your memory about them. I should remind the Minister that at some trouble, over quite a period, the former Schools Authority established a policy for dealing with schools as enrolments decline. It was a policy that was subsequently ignored by the department, even before the Minister came into his present position.
I want to go on to these four primary schools that remain threatened. I will not accept that they are going to close, but they remain threatened. Let us start with Lyons Primary School, which has a case that is as good as any
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