Page 4878 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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I think that indicates quite clearly that, if the marketplace, as it were, for education of this kind is any indication, there is clearly a very different socioeconomic class of people, if I might say so, using Canberra Grammar from those that use the other schools mentioned. I seek leave to table that paper.
Leave granted.
MR HUMPHRIES: It indicates quite clearly that there is a very real question of whether a school such as Canberra Grammar is most appropriately placed in category 1 at all. It is in a league with schools which, I submit - and I do not say this with any disrespect to the schools concerned, either in the ACT or outside it - are in a category that is inappropriate for the standing of that school. That school ought to be in a lower category.
The other point is that, with the decision this Government has made to cut funding to those three non-government schools, a situation will accrue where those three schools are less well funded than any other schools in their category across the country. Indeed, in the case of the Canberra Church of England Girls Grammar School and the AME School, those schools would be less well funded in category 3 than are some schools in category 1 in other places in Australia.
That must be a matter that any sensitive government should have regard to. I hope we will see that from the Government. I hope we will see movement by this Government towards taking some account of that problem. It is obviously a matter of grave concern to the non-government sector. They have argued for some time that we should not be using Federal Government categories, and I submit that now is a good time to assess whether or not we need to use those categories.
A number of questions need to be asked about, in particular, the decision made by this Government a few months ago when it brought down its budget. First of all, what evidence does the Government have that makes it believe that the three schools whose funding it has cut have the resources to survive the cut? The Minister winks at me. He thinks it is self-evident, I gather, by the tone of that wink, that there is some capacity on the part of those three schools to sustain cuts of this order - cuts of something like $500,000 in a year. I say that that is baloney. I have seen no evidence of that. The schools concerned argue strenuously that there is no evidence of that. I think it is incumbent on the Minister to show the Assembly and the people of this Territory what evidence he has that would justify that conclusion. Clearly, there is none.
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