Page 2503 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 1991
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the best answer is. Members of the Rally wish to know the real truth of the matter about the community, and I am anxious that such a meeting be held. I hope it can be held on a weekend, at a time when all members of this Assembly can be there. I very much regret that I was not invited to the previous meeting at which this was discussed. Even if I had been invited, it was called at very short notice and I already had another engagement that night.
On behalf of the Rally, I am saying that the information is not yet clear. We await better information. I want to hear more from the Education Department, more from the Minister for Education, more from the P and Cs. At that point, I think it will be legitimate for us to make a decision.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.50): Mr Speaker, I think it would be worth stating briefly the chronology of events in this matter.
Mr Wood: It was a rush decision by the Alliance Government.
MR HUMPHRIES: I think Mr Wood will understand, when he hears this recounting of the facts, that considerable consultation with the community was going on all the time, as a result of which the Alliance Government modified its decisions on several occasions, and I will run through those now. The Alliance decided in the course of last year to amalgamate the Weston Creek High School and the Holder High School and to close the Holder campus of that amalgamated school. From memory, I think our original decision was to close it from the end of 1991.
We had extensive consultations with the communities concerned after that decision was announced. In response to that consultation, it was agreed that the Holder campus should not close as early as that; that the community's desire for a longer timeframe should be respected. As my colleagues will know, in the Alliance joint party room the decision ultimately was made to leave the Holder campus open until consolidation of the two campuses could be comfortably achieved. We said quite clearly that that would not occur until all the students could be accommodated on the one campus, without any need for demountable classrooms.
That was our second modified decision based on consultation with the community. It was obviously very clearly and widely accepted by both the school community and the Alliance Government at that time. Incidentally, the Alliance figures indicated that there would not be able to be a consolidation onto the one campus until 1994. I have those projected figures here and I am happy to table them later on.
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