Page 5996 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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I now come specifically to Mrs Nolan's points, because if they are read without additional comment I think she has considerably damaged our report. She claims that the report does not have vision. I ask her to read chapter 13 again, both the realistic and idealistic aims in that section. The future is considered in the five-year plan, but it is considered in the light of what can really be done. I look especially at the recommendation in chapter 15. Mrs Nolan says, on page 130, that there was not nearly enough time. There is never enough time; we all recognise that. Would that we could have had more time on a number of points.
Mrs Nolan: I did not say that there was not enough time.
DR KINLOCH: Well, I am looking at what you have said here. Would that we could have had more time, but we did not. We used a great deal of time and it is my belief that we used that time effectively. I am very puzzled by this sentence:
Equity for all young people seemingly was not given the necessary consideration.
I just do not believe that. Not fully knowing what it means, I cannot fully comment; but we did try to look at a whole range of young people. Had we had time, we could have visited 10, 15 or 20 schools. We did not have time; would that we had time. Nevertheless, we did have a fair understanding of a range of schools and we did go to some schools and some places where there were young people in a state that we might call behaviourally disturbed.
I very much agree, though, with her comments on page 130 about not taking into concern other classroom students. This is a problem. We were directing our attention to the question of the behaviourally disturbed students. Quite rightly, as Mrs Nolan points out, what about all the other students who are affected by behaviourally disturbed students? If there were to be another report, I think that is an area that should be addressed, whether in the government or non-government schools. I congratulate her on that particular point.
I would argue, looking again at page 130, that many of these issues that are claimed here not to have been discussed - religious education, unemployment, the social cost of higher education retention rates - we did discuss, one way or another, whether on a plane, or in a car, or on a field trip, or between ourselves, or in meetings. To be sure, one could have done more, and I would like to have done more in relation to religious education; but we did consider that matter. Again, time runs out on you; there are not enough hours in the day.
I would agree and disagree about visiting. It would have been good, would it not, if we had been able to see at first hand every situation in the ACT; but we did visit
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