Page 3846 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
acknowledge it, and I can justify it in the terms that I have often repeated, that it is less of an impact than it would be for the schools that Mr Humphries was targeting. I believe that it is, in those terms, a sustainable and supportable decision.
The impact on other schools would truly have been catastrophic. If you defend, as is your right, those three schools, at the same time you should tell me how you feel about what you were proposing to do about those other schools. How would you feel about taking close to $2m out of that entire non-government sector when we are proposing to take a quarter of that amount out of that sector, albeit from a much smaller group of those schools? What were you going to do for the 37 other schools in the non-government sector? You certainly do not want to stand up here and support those schools; that much is clear.
The hard decisions have been taken. You were prepared to take harder decisions or tougher ones, at any rate, by taking $2m out of that system. When you stand up and respond, if indeed you do - and you are doing so most belatedly, as I said at the outset of my speech, in response to Mr Stevenson - tell me about those 37 other schools.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.59): We have heard the usual tired arguments come out of the Minister. They are no more convincing now than they were in the Estimates Committee. I am disappointed about the extent to which the Minister is running arguments which have to be described as a bit below the belt. He began by saying that the proponent of this MPI today - that is, Mr Stevenson - is a crackpot and that therefore the argument itself must be invalid. That is obviously playing the man rather than the issue, and it is disappointing that someone like Mr Wood is doing that.
He is also suggesting, quite mischievously, that there has not been very much debate on this matter in the precincts of this place. That statement could be made only in the earshot of people who did not sit through the Estimates Committee hearing last week, when Mr Wood was grilled for over an hour on his Government's plans, or lack thereof, for promotion of non-government schooling. He has also trotted out, for at least the fourth or fifth time, the tired old argument about what the Alliance was proposing to do in this area, which has been comprehensively knocked over, and he does not have the decency to acknowledge any of the platforms that he has stood on for the last few weeks.
I will state once more for his benefit, although he has left the chamber, and for the benefit of the record what the Alliance was proposing to do. It was our philosophy, right or wrong, that if cuts were to be made in education they should be made proportionately across both sectors, that both government and non-government education should experience the cuts at the same levels. That was our
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .