Page 201 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES: That was from polling done throughout the course of last year, 1990, when the school closures debates were going on.
Mr Speaker, I think that speaks volumes. I think Mr Wood had better go out and speak to some of the people in the system himself, to see what they really think about what is going on. He also ought to speak to some teachers, because there are some teachers in the system who are, in fact, very well aware of the objectives of the Government in getting manageable school sizes and who support the concept of school sizes being larger than in some cases they are. If Mr Wood is not aware of that kind of sentiment in some teachers, he ought to go out and speak to some teachers about it.
Mr Wood claims that the whole situation in education is in crisis and he cannot name any area where the Government has achieved any success; yet he himself has been prepared to acknowledge on numerous occasions that our progress with preschools through the preschool task force, and the process embarked on in that exercise, has been highly successful, as indeed it has. That task force report clearly demonstrated a high level of parental support for preschool education. It indicated a range of options for restructuring preschool education. The Government, of course, closed two preschools at the end of last year as part of the process of restructuring and experimenting with new options. I have to say that I had extensive discussions with those preschools before those closures occurred, and at this stage I understand that the new preschools opened as a result of those closures are operating very well and parents are satisfied to a large degree with what has occurred at those preschools.
Mr Speaker, the Government has also taken initiatives in the area of teacher quality. Mr Wood, I think, asked the question, "What has the Minister done about professional development and teacher quality?". Mr Wood conveniently ignores and overlooks, for the sake of his argument, the fact that the Government announced, in the last budget, a program to enhance teacher quality. It is a very important program which is presently getting under way. That will assist in optimising classroom experiences for children. But, of course, he ignores that in the course of this debate.
Finally, Mr Speaker, I want to quote from the secretary of the ACT Teachers Federation, from a letter in the Canberra Times on the 2nd of this month. She asked the question, "Will a Labor Government reopen schools its Federal counterparts closed in 1988?". We know the answer to that one, Mr Speaker. We know what they did in 1989 when they were in government, when the schools were barely closed. They did nothing. And, of course, they will do nothing this time around.
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