Page 3865 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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I must say that I am appalled at the sorts of arguments I hear. I was appalled not only by the "hoi polloi" comment, which I understand Mr Connolly has dealt with. I hope that Bishop Dowling will be prepared to apologise to my children, to me, to the friends of my children and to many Canberrans whom he has insulted in that way. Whether he is a bishop or not, that is the reality; he has delivered a significant insult to a large number of Canberrans. I believe that he did not mean it. It perhaps underrides a certain emotional feeling. Nevertheless, if that is the case, if he did not mean it, he ought to be apologising. That is something that I will wait to see.
But the argument that comes out again and again is: What about social justice for our children? What about social justice? The parish priest, Father Kelly, argued that we should have per capita funding for schools. Per capita funding for schools is the antithesis of social justice. What is social justice? That is what I am going to explain to you. Social justice is about equal access. Equal access starts with equal access to food and accommodation. We take care of people, as far as food and accommodation go, through our social security benefits when they do not have that sort of access. We also want to see, in social justice terms, equal access to health care.
They are areas in which we have a great deal of difficulty getting equal access. We probably never will get to a true situation in which we have social justice. But with education we are getting closer, particularly in Canberra, because social justice means that you can give any child, in spite of the wealth of their parents, in spite of the sacrifices that their parents are prepared to make, equal access to the best quality of education.
Why is education so important as far as social justice goes? Education gives people the life tools to be able to move from one level of society to another. That is why education is absolutely critical, and that is why social justice and access to the very best education is so important. That is why children whose parents are not prepared to make those sacrifices that some parents have made or those whose parents simply do not have the wherewithal to do it - the children who, for whatever reason, are in the public education system - have to be able to go into a public education system that is just as good as any other education system, government or non-government, within this Territory.
We have it, and by golly we are not going to let go of it, because it allows all children access to any equally good education system. I would argue that in lots of cases the government schools that we have here are better than the non-government schools. You bet they are, and we are going to keep them that way. Because we have that situation, that is providing access to children whose parents either do not care or cannot afford it or have decided that it is a good education system. That access is what is critical, and that is the issue of social justice.
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