Page 4385 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 21 November 1990
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recognise Mr Wood's good heart in this matter and I recognise Mr Humphries' carefully considered responses. I recognise the passion that has been put forward by many people.
It would be ridiculous to expect me to stand here and say that I welcome the closure of any of our excellent schools. I do not believe that any member of the Alliance Government is enthusiastic about closing schools. I am certainly not enthusiastic about it and wish that circumstances were other than they are. But I now wish to reflect on the process which has brought us to this point of the recommended closure of four primary schools and I quote from my own submission to the Hudson inquiry. I want to stress that this was a personal submission. There was also a submission from the three of us - the three members of the Residents Rally - but I feel, in this circumstance, I should quote only from my own, which was separate. This is to Mr Hudson:
I need to explain to you, briefly, the events which brought about the Rally's rejection of an agreement which had been earlier arrived at in the Joint Party Room of the Alliance Government.
a. For many weeks I was personally involved as Executive Deputy for Education in discussions about the proposed closures. As Chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Education I was particularly aware of the advice given to the Minister by his appointed committee. The overwhelming strength of that advice was to oppose school closures.
The committee gradually came to have very grave worries about the competence of those setting up the closure process, and the nature of that process.
b. I, on behalf of the Rally, was much involved in the process which insisted that two criteria be added to the criteria named by the Division of Education. These were "social contexts" and "quality of education". I should add that these two central and essential criteria were not looked on with favour by some of those who were involved in the attempts to close schools.
Especially quality of education. I continued:
The Minister, however, accepted these criteria.
c. When the time came for the Joint Party Room to consider the recommendations of the Schools Restructuring Project Group, each one of us was given a "confidential" envelope containing briefing papers from the SRPG. I was immediately
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