Page 4879 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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The second question is: Did the Government know before it took the decision how these three schools would compare in their funding with all other level 1 and level 3 schools in Australia? I doubt that they did. I doubt that they had any thought about that matter. I doubt that any question of equity crossed their minds as they were considering this question in their budget. They saw these three schools as easy targets - schools whose funding could be cut because only the rich would bleat and they would therefore get away with this, politically speaking. That is an inequitable arrangement for any government to adopt as a basis for its cuts, and it is particularly heinous in this case, with those schools having their foreshadowed arrangements - that is, the arrangements they had been led to believe would be in place - cut out from underneath them by this Government's decision. It is clearly wrong; it is clearly in need of reconsideration.
I believe that the motion I will put after the MPI will deal with that question. Is the Government content with the fact that Canberra Grammar School will receive the smallest grant of any school in Australia, by a very significant margin, if these cuts go ahead? I suspect that they are content with that, but I believe that the rest of the community will not be. The matters mentioned in this motion are very important, and I will refer to them later, in the substantive debate on the motion.
Mr Berry: Why don't you seek leave to move it now?
MR HUMPHRIES: I will get leave, Mr Berry. Do not worry about that. The fact of life is that we need to know the details of the Government's inquiry. I look forward to hearing those details from Mr Wood. It is not good enough for him to respond in a knee-jerk fashion to the pressure put on him by the Opposition and say, "We will have an inquiry".
Mr Wood: No pressure; don't worry about that.
MR HUMPHRIES: The timing is funny, is it not? The timing is peculiar. The day the Opposition moves a motion to deal with this problem, the Government starts to move. What was the phrase Mr Berry used the other day? Was it "moving with the speed of a drunken sloth"? I think that is a pretty accurate description of this Government. We need to know what is going on. We cannot get those sorts of answers in question time. I hope the Minister will make them forthcoming - - -
Mr Wood: You have not asked in question time.
MR HUMPHRIES: I did ask in question time. I asked what arrangements we had for terms of reference and the chairing of this inquiry. I was told, "Wait until later". Let us see the Minister put up his information about this so that we can get on with the business of making sure that schools in this Territory, whether they are government or non-government, are funded on the same equitable basis.
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