Page 4381 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 21 November 1990
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to nine months of chaos in the school system and an eventual decision now that we are going to close four primary schools. For one of them the agony is not over yet. They are going to close that some time next year, they hope. Well, we will see what happens.
These four schools that are mentioned in the Opposition's motions are the schools that have been sacrificed on the altar of holding this ramshackle Government together. They are the schools that have been sacrificed for the vanity of the Liberal Party that started off, as I said, with this Thatcherite "Let's get tough; Terry Metherell can close schools, so can I" approach, and, at the end of the day, from their 25 schools they are down to four. That is the bottom line. They have to close those four.
What about the Residents Rally? They are the ones who would like to have nothing to do with this. They are the ones who would like to be the good news party, the warm, soft and cuddly party. "We saved three schools", say the Residents Rally. Well, the community will not wear that. The community will realise that these four schools have been closed by Mr Collaery, Mr Jensen and Dr Kinloch. They cannot get away from that. Dr Kinloch, Mr Jensen and Mr Collaery voted to close these schools. When we have a debate later on this afternoon these members will be on record because they will have to put their hands up and show what they feel about closing those schools.
I must say that I have not completely lost hope that Dr Kinloch might vote against his so-called Alliance colleagues and vote with the Opposition on this motion, because that is certainly the way he has expressed himself. That is certainly the way he has gone out on public platforms. I hope that he will have the courage of his convictions and vote with the Opposition on the Bills.
Mrs Grassby: What about Jensen? He told them Lyons would stay open.
MR CONNOLLY: Well, we will see what Mr Jensen does too. We will see what all these Residents Rally individuals do. All they are interested in is holding onto power. Mr Collaery was seen on television the other night saying that he would not lose government over this single issue. Or that may have been the hospitals. It is hard to tell which issue of Rally policy that they are departing from on any single day is the single issue that he will not lose government over. They are determined to hang onto office and they are prepared to sacrifice the schools of Canberra for that. And these are the four schools that are going to get the chop, in their view.
The fundamental point about this schools decision is, we say, that it is deleterious to the educational benefits to children. I heard talkback radio, early yesterday afternoon, when the decision had just been announced on the Julie Derrett show, and the most striking comment there
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