Page 3842 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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So, what do we need to do about this? Let us look at the impact. The suggestion by Mr Wood in the budget Estimates Committee hearing, that there will be no appreciable impact on the schools themselves, is certainly not borne out either by the schools or by looking at the presentations that they have made. The suggestion that there will be no immediate impact on government schools would be highly debatable if students were forced to go into the government schooling system. Hardships will be created for some people. One thing that it certainly does is reduce freedom of choice.
What action should be taken? The three schools have asked for government funding to be guaranteed for the 1992 school year, at least. Then there should be fair and adequate consultation with the schools concerned. Once again, in the budget Estimates Committee hearing Mr Wood said that there was consultation. I suggest that the only time you can have consultation is when both parties know that it has occurred.
The decision to cut the funds should be reversed; there should be genuine consultation with the schools concerned and any other non-government schools that may be targeted for the future; and the call by those schools for an independent inquiry to look at all the funding arrangements of non-government schools should be answered. We should be encouraging non-government schools. We should be encouraging the right of parents in Canberra to have their children attend the schools of their choice. Indeed, we should have a fair go for non-government schools and all Canberrans.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (3.43): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the funding of all schools in Canberra - and that certainly includes non-government schools - is a matter that this Government has taken very seriously. I am sure that all members of this Assembly recognise the importance of the issue. You would know - you would certainly expect - that in our budget deliberations this was a matter to which we gave the most careful consideration. No decisions were taken lightly, and that includes the decisions concerning these schools that are now under debate.
As with all the programs that we considered in relation to all the ramifications of the budget, we considered closely the impact of any cuts. We examined the pros and cons and made our decisions as best we could in the circumstances. All members would know the very difficult circumstances in which this budget was framed. It was framed by the Labor Party, in this instance, as you know, because of the fall of the previous Government. But we were all facing the same circumstances, and we were all taking certain measures to deal with them. I think it is worth reading into the record what Ms Follett said in her recent budget speech:
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