Page 2917 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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one month to the day after Mr Willmot's letter - and the cost to do that was $880,000 approximately. They suggested that it be 15 July, to reduce community distress that delay might cause, and there were a couple of other political public relations reasons as well. The Minister says that this was a bureaucratic game. That is not so. The bureaucrats were taking into account the political imperatives at the time.
The Minister also wrote to the Chief Minister seeking funding to make this possible. He wrote to the Chief Minister and asked for $880,000. Again, in that letter there was no reference to any option, any alternative. It was $880,000-odd. Mr Wood informed the Chief Minister in a letter that same day that he supported the recommendation to reopen the schools in July for an estimated $880,000. He also mentioned $500,000 as the lowest cost if they were reopened the following February. He stated that he believed that the Government should proceed quickly to reopen those schools - that is, from 15 July - and that that action would accord with the school communities and the Teachers Federation. Mr Wood sought agreement from Ms Follett for $890,000, not $600,000, as a commitment against funding to be provided for new policy proposals in 1991-92.
Where does the $600,000 come from? His own letter said $890,000. He also sought the amount from funds to be available for new policy proposals, not as an offset against existing funds. The letter states:
Both you and I are on record as having stated that the cost of reopening Cook and Lyons Primary Schools will not be borne by other schools in the public system ...
The Chief Minister and the Minister were both on record as saying that the cost would not be borne by the other schools. But Mr Wood and Ms Follett knew full well what their promise to the schools was and what the estimated cost was. Yet six days later Mr Wood and Ms Follett provided to the Assembly as the estimate of the then cost a figure they knew to be false. The then cost was $890,000, which Mr Wood had stated in his own letter only six days before. Either that, or Ms Follett does not read advice provided to her by one of her Ministers. She obviously did not read the letter, or she did not understand it.
It is understood that on 17 June Mr Wood instructed his secretary for education to produce a figure for reopening the schools, but it was to be a figure below $500,000. In other words, he had got the message that the $890,000 was not good enough. But, at the time that all this was taking place, $890,000 was the figure. Figures were supplied as requested, Madam Speaker - and the Minister has confirmed that - on the proviso that the Chief Minister be made aware of them. The Chief Minister was made aware of those figures reducing the apparent cost to about half a million and absorbing the cost for maintenance within the general education program. What about the Minister's statement that this would not be borne by the education budget? He had earlier said, "My aim is that additional costs will not come from the education budget. Money will be found from the overall budget". So, the second part of his contention went right out the window and the Education Department, other schools and other children in the education system are being deprived of money because of the reopening of these schools - despite the Minister saying that that would not happen.
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