Page 3862 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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I am therefore pleading with you and your party to withdraw actions which make certain schools more expensive than they already are. I re-emphasise Mr Stevenson's comment that this restricts freedom of choice not to "well-off" families - they can send their children to Frensham or Geelong or wherever - but to all the families in Canberra who are on the margin, who are trying to make a decision based on their religious commitment in many cases, families who would like their children to have a Catholic or Anglican education. If there were other religious schools, we should support them too. I do not think it will be long before there will be a Muslim population or a Buddhist population looking for similar schooling. But those people cannot necessarily afford it unless their denominational school has a cushion of funds, out of which bursaries and scholarships can be made.
So. I want to put this view most forcefully to the ALP: I am going to fight as hard for those three schools as I did for the schools last year, especially for Weetangera and later for Lyons and Cook. I am asking that you recognise that and that very, very shortly you withdraw the action that you have taken. Please do not stand there, Mr Wood, defending a Cabinet action that you know is wrong.
Mr Wood: Rubbish! What nonsense you are going on with there. Your whole logic is warped here. You want to go back and do a bit of study on the way these systems are developed.
DR KINLOCH: I want to put the view that you are consolidating, even forcing, a kind of socioeconomic class division which I hope the ALP, at its best, fundamentally opposes. I oppose that socioeconomic division. I am thrilled to be in this city, in this country, in a hoi polloi country. It is the most hoi polloi country, with the possible exception of New Zealand.
Mr Connolly: But the bishop did not want that. He said that we might have to mix with the hoi polloi.
DR KINLOCH: I will be saying to Bishop Owen Dowling, a dear man, "Owen, I think you need to restate what you said". So, I ask - not in terms of political point scoring, but as a plea for social justice - that this promised cushioning be maintained. Please go back and look at it again.
I cannot speak about all Anglican parishes, but I can certainly speak about two to which my children went because my wife was then involved with the Anglican Church. I refer specifically to All Saints, Ainslie, and also Holy Cross, Hackett. These are not wealthy parishes. Go and have a look at them. Go and sit there on a Sunday morning in the pew and ask yourself, "Are these people 'well off'?". There are families on the margin in those parishes.
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