Page 202 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 1991
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The next question is:
Will the teachers cut from schools by the previous Follett Labor Government in 1989 be returned to schools?
We know what the answer to that is, too, do we not? No. Bill Wood assured us that only support staff were cut in 1989. That is incorrect. This is the secretary of the Teachers Federation talking about the claims Mr Wood has made in this house and elsewhere. Teacher numbers were cut at high schools. The very sector of the system that he says needs greatest attention is suffering right now with bigger classes and reduced subject offerings. That, Mr Speaker, is a legacy of Labor, not of the Alliance Government.
MR WOOD (11.59), in reply: There is a wish that I close the debate, Mr Speaker. I think Mr Humphries made my point for me when at one stage he was talking about public discussion, and he went on at great length to talk about how much he had consulted with the community. I acknowledge that; I always have. When the big debate was raging earlier on, he was out amongst the schools, and he listened to everything that was said. He did not have too many answers, but he was certainly listening, and there was certainly plenty of debate.
But the point is this: Mr Humphries, in this Assembly, and publicly, announced a set of criteria to determine which schools should close. He said, and he said it more than once in those first weeks, that they would listen to the community's views on the criteria, and after that there would be no debate. We told him in here that he was wrong, that the community would demand that there should be a debate. He had his debate, but it was forced on him.
Mr Jensen: The criteria were changed.
MR WOOD: Yes, but the point I am trying to make, Mr Jensen, is that Mr Humphries is not on top of the administrative arrangements that he operates. He had a plan to do things; but, of course, there was no way that that plan could be implemented. He had to change.
Mr Humphries: What about your plan to close preschools? That had to change as well, didn't it?
MR WOOD: Mr Humphries makes my point for me. And it is still the case today. I make the point with respect to Maribyrnong school. It is not the greatest problem that has faced the Minister, and I do not want to inflate that beyond a level that it needs; but the debate that is now going to happen there has had to be forced on the Minister, and that is not the way it should go.
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