Page 4990 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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Proposed expenditure - Division 230 - Non-Government Schooling, $56,111,200
DR KINLOCH (11.32): It is not merely to be consistent that I am about to make the points I am going to make. I have honoured the Labor Party for its commitment to certain promises made before self-government. They were right to do that; they were right to open those schools; they were right to insist on the neighbourhood principle. I certainly regret any early negotiation where I was not sufficiently full-tilt. It was those documents that helped to make me full-tilt and to fight that good battle. That was a battle well fought. I am glad that I was with the Labor Party on that one, and with Mr Moore - the Rally and the Labor Party and Mr Moore. We did well.
Here we come to the other side of the fence, and I deeply regret the ideological stance of the Labor Party on this one. There is another document of promise, and that document has been dishonoured. Furthermore, consultation was not undertaken with the schools in question. At least one of those schools, by no stretch of the imagination, can be regarded as rich or at the top end of the scale, and you all know it. You have done dirty by that school. That school is losing numbers and losing teachers. That is totally improper and we must fight it. I am hoping that in the next 15 minutes you will reverse your stance. You still have time to do the right thing.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.34): Mr Speaker, I echo the comments of Dr Kinloch, but perhaps not in quite the same tone. I consider that what this Government has done has been dishonourable by the standards which they themselves set when in opposition last year. Today it is worth recording that the Assembly has never been given a satisfactory explanation as to why an undertaking made to a government school should be honoured, whereas an undertaking made to a non-government school should not be honoured. The Minister has always consistently sidestepped that very important question. It would be nice to hear him address that issue squarely and fairly for the first time tonight, although I have my doubts.
Mr Speaker, again there are long-term issues to be faced here. Facing them, though, is a little bit easier in the case of non-government schools because we do have before the Assembly now a practical way of doing just that. I refer to the motion that was passed this afternoon providing for an inquiry into the funding arrangements for non-government schools. It provides the Government with an excellent opportunity to get to the bottom of serious issues about long-term planning and the long-term equities, if you like, in the funding arrangements.
I do not think that anyone would suggest that we can easily translate arrangements from other States or from the government sector into the non-government sector. The essence of any good system would be to merge the differences between non-government and government schooling
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