Page 2088 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
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MR WOOD: I suspect that the Minister is fudging over the issue, and, in fact, what may be happening is that one program will be closed and a totally different program will be instituted in its place. I might say, Minister Humphries, that I am not convinced by this brief interchange that we have had. I know that there were proposals for a quite different program at Dairy Flat, and I wonder whether that is the program that you are talking about and the particular program at Holder, formerly at South Curtin school, will no longer operate. I remain very concerned about it.
Mr Humphries: You are opposed to improvements, are you?
MR WOOD: No, certainly not. That is a fair point for the Minister to make. I am not opposed to improvements and I would never argue that an existing program should go without review, and perhaps without the change that follows that review. Therefore, at some stage the Minister might tell me what review of the program at Holder was carried out. That would be valuable to have. But enough of that; that will be part of a continuing debate.
Another matter where the Chief Minister may be able to provide this Assembly, and, through the Assembly, the community, with an answer is the level of funding for TAFE in the ACT. A little time ago the Chief Minister carried out a public relations stunt. We had the announcement that there had been a contract between TAFE and the Government. Of course, the term "contract" suggests very strongly that here we had an agreement. I have to admit that I do not know the background of it at all. It may be that there was harmonious, happy agreement between TAFE and the Government on this contract. It may be that TAFE had no choice but to bow to the political masters and accept a contract that was thrust upon it. I do not know; I can only wonder.
The effect of the contract is to cut TAFE funding by 6 per cent over each of three years - a very substantial cut. The contract claimed that that 6 per cent would be taken up by funding from private sources. TAFE would go out to the private market, to the businesses, to the enterprises of this town and recover that 6 per cent each year to carry on the level of services. That, in fact, is an impossible task. The Chief Minister must have known that there was no way that TAFE could accomplish that. Despite good management, despite the best efforts of TAFE, that is not an achievable target.
Certainly, if one looks back at the growth of private sponsorship and of private support to TAFE over recent years, there is no evidence that it could increase by that level in such a short time. It may be a desirable goal, but I claim that it is not an achievable one. The result has been that TAFE is now increasingly squeezed; it cannot provide the courses, it cannot provide the services to the
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