Page 5087 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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We also have to ask, I think, how it is that students can stay in the classrooms while the things in that classroom that presumably make their education viable, for example, books and other equipment, are being removed. For all those reasons, I have to say that the Government, after very careful consideration, decided that the best approach was the same approach as was taken on previous occasions where school closures have occurred, and that is that there should be pupil-free days to provide the necessary breathing space for teachers to properly complete their jobs at those schools.
MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. If you have not paid for whatever staff would be required, how can you justify the severe financial imposition on parents for those three days? In the case of one family that has been brought to my attention, with four children, the cost was $180 over three days. Why could you not have paid even the child-care costs?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I am certainly aware of the burden that pupil-free days - - -
Mr Wood: Well, what have you done about it?
MR HUMPHRIES: I am certainly aware of the burden that pupil-free days impose on parents, and I have done something about it, as Mr Wood well knows. The Government has made it perfectly clear that parents who are unable to provide that money - - -
Mr Wood: That is just lovely.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, I do not know what Mr Wood wants.
Mr Wood: Do you think parents like to come up and say "I cannot afford it"? It is disgraceful.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, Mr Wood may not be aware that principals in our primary and secondary schools already deal with a number of cases of financial hardship regularly in those schools. The arrangements are that parents approach the principal - not the Department of Education, not the Minister for Education, but the principal of the school - and say that they would like to receive assistance, and I am advised that on those occasions a very tolerant attitude is taken and parents are not asked to justify the basis on which they seek that assistance. It is generally granted more or less on a "no questions asked" basis.
That is the case here. Parents who approach the principal of any school, I am sure, will receive assistance as required. I reject the assertion that this poses an intolerable burden on parents. In fact, I am assured that the majority of parents have made their own arrangements, anyway, for the safe care of their children.
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