Page 4521 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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destroying the fabric of society, that we are ripping the guts out of our public schools system. It also fits alongside other statements that are continually being made, none of which have any basis in fact. As I have said, people should look at the facts, look at all the information that is provided in the budget papers, and not stop at the table on page 46 and then proceed to make unfounded and ill-informed deductions. They should read all that is contained in the budget papers. If you did that, I am sure you would have to agree that education is not bearing the brunt, as you imply that it is.
MR CONNOLLY (4.21): Mr Speaker, what the budget papers tell us, of course, is that schools are being closed; that education is in disarray; that the community is outraged; that we are assured the funding, in real terms, is the same as in previous years; that there is a $12m increase on a $240m expenditure base, and that we have about a 5 per cent increase in money terms, which is a fairly optimistic view of the inflation rate. However, we will take the Chief Minister's view that funding is being maintained in real terms.
The concern, of course, is that it is not sufficient to maintain expenditure on recurrent terms as new schools are being opened as the population of the Territory grows. You would have to maintain expenditure, not only in real dollar terms on a recurrent base, but in terms of the steadily growing Territory population.
It is the education component of the budget in which the Opposition can have no confidence. It is the education part of the budget that the Opposition must particularly be critical of in the appropriation debate. I had occasion to be flicking through an atlas the other day and I noticed that there is a sheep station in the far north of Western Australia that has been named after this Government's education policy. It is the only sheep station in Australia named after a government policy. It is Bungle Bungle Station. When I saw that in the index I looked more closely and it is even more apposite because the atlas tells us that Bungle Bungle Station is in ruins. That is about where the credibility of the Government's education policy and school closures policy stands.
The approach to school closures stands condemned because of the backdown by the Government, the acknowledgment that they were not going to proceed with the seven schools, and the fact that they have moved to a closure policy now of four schools with a projected saving - on Mr Hudson's view - of only slightly less than the original projected saving. This is the origin of the so-called option E.
Mr Hudson found that the Government's preferred option, the seven schools option, would save some $2.5m. The budget papers that the Chief Minister told us to read - and to
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