Page 3845 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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that is the step that the Labor Party took to look after the ordinary school, the ordinary person, in contrast with the Liberal and Rally proposal to look after the better-off schools, which would have been the impact of what they were going to do.
Mr Duby: That is bizarre!
MR WOOD: Mr ex-Finance Minister, you ought to have a look at the impact of the proposals to which you agreed. You will see that what I say is correct. There has been some mention of the word "ideology", that this is ideologically based. Mr Berry indicated that we do have different philosophies.
Mr Kaine: He indicated that this was an ideological decision.
MR WOOD: It was, in the end, a difference of philosophy between the Liberal-Rally model of looking after those who are better off and the Labor Party philosophy of looking after those who have the most need. I do not think you should be surprised at that approach.
Mr Humphries: The most votes is what you are after; forget the most need.
MR WOOD: No, we considered this purely in those terms of social justice, which some people on that side of the house either do not understand or deliberately misuse. We do not like to take these decisions. If we had had ample money coming through, if we were in different circumstances, if it was not as tough this year as it was when we framed the first Follett budget, we may well have maintained that cushioning, that bonus, that concession; but the circumstances prevented that.
Let us look at the impact on those schools, which we would prefer to have avoided. It is certainly not as disastrous as it would have been to category 10 schools, Mrs Nolan, as I am sure you are aware. On the information that I have, the increase in fees at Canberra Grammar School will be $202 per primary student; at secondary level it will be $285. There will be about a 5 per cent increase in fees if it is to be worked out through fees. There is no necessity, I believe, for that to happen. At the Girls Grammar School, on the figures that I have, because fees vary across year levels it averages $77 a primary student and $123 a secondary student, and that is the case also for the AME School. At Canberra Grammar that is taken in the context of fees that are already $5,000 a year. That is the impact, and it is an impact, I will acknowledge.
At least two of those schools may well be in a position to absorb a great deal of the cost, with no need to pass it on to the parent community by way of fee increases. I do not have the close details of their funding and their own financial arrangements. That is the level of it; I
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