Page 1090 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 1991
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MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I will briefly address the third part of Mr Stevenson's question when he asked about the high-tech, computer controlled, direct mail campaign and the like. I think that it needs to be said that what we can be absolutely certain of is that Labor's electoral campaign will now go down market. Labor's junk mail experts will begin flooding the letterboxes of the ACT, and indeed of the whole of Australia, with material destined only for the rubbish bin - like their policies and like their performance.
One shudders to think of the environmental hazard recently created by all of those fridge magnets bearing the name R. Follett and printed in a particular shade of magenta, which are now littering the Mugga Lane and west Belconnen tips - and that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is going to happen nationwide when the Labor Party launches its letterbox campaign. Every letterbox in Australia is going to get filled up with junk mail which nobody is going to read. It is going to cost the Labor Party a lot of money and the effect of all of that will be to curtail public discussion on the issues leading up to the election instead of engendering it. I thought that was what elections were all about. I think Mr Stevenson's question indicates that he agrees with me that this is a shameful thing for a Federal Labor Government to do.
Teachers' Qualifications
MR STEFANIAK: My question is addressed to the Minister for Education. Mr Humphries, is it true that you support moves by your New South Wales counterpart to simplify recognition of teachers in New South Wales to enable teachers to move easily into New South Wales from other States?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mr Stefaniak for that question. The ACT is continuing to discuss with New South Wales the reciprocal recognition of qualifications of teachers employed in New South Wales and the ACT. It is a first move towards the national registration of teachers. I certainly agree with statements by Mrs Chadwick, the New South Wales Minister, that making easier the transfer of teachers between systems, whether it is New South Wales and the ACT or the ACT and anywhere else, is a step towards more cohesion in the emerging national education industry in this country.
The question of teachers' professional qualifications is also being considered in the broader nationwide forum of the national project on the quality of teaching and learning, and also by the Vocational Employment and Education and Training Advisory Committee's working party on recognition of professional qualifications.
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