Page 2498 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 1991
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Follett Government announce immediately its plans for secondary students in the Weston Creek area which will enable those students to have the best quality education with a broad-based curriculum. I call on the Assembly to support this motion and, unlike the Minister and the Labor Government, to give consideration to the Weston Creek students and the school community.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.29): Mr Speaker, I am amazed that we have allegations here that the ALP Government is not listening to the community. That is what this motion says, and to hear it coming from these people, and specifically the Liberal Party, is truly astounding. It was the Liberals and their Minister, Gary Humphries, who announced some considerable time ago that we were going to close up to a quarter of our schools and we were going to do that - the "we" being Mr Humphries - without consultation with the community.
Ultimately you had that debate, that consultation, forced on you, as I said you would; but it was your intention to do all that mammoth restructuring without attending to what the community wanted. Now we are being criticised because we are listening to the community. That is exactly what we are doing. We have been in government now for something like two months and in that period, not to mention the period before, we have been attending to what that community is saying.
Mr Humphries: What is it saying?
MR WOOD: I will tell you what it is saying. It is a little difficult to ascertain what is being said. Part of the problem, of course, is that the Follett Government has to clean up the mess you people created. You talked about the disturbance in Weston Creek. It is suffering now, along with other schools in our community, because of the rushed decisions and the poor consultation that were part of your administration. We have to turn around now and clean it up. In August last year - just a year ago - after Mr Humphries' rushed decision there was a large meeting at Weston Creek which some 500 people attended. What did that meeting say? The meeting said that the amalgamation was too hasty, and they passed motions that are recorded in the newspaper report.
Mr Humphries: But who are "they"?
MR WOOD: Some 500 people.
Mr Humphries: Are they parents of school children?
MR WOOD: We do have support in Weston Creek, but not to the tune of 500 people that we could turn out at a meeting, I can tell you. I wish it were the case. This was a meeting of community people. I was not able to get to the meeting that night, but 500 people turned out to criticise what you were doing as being too hasty.
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