Page 2935 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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Mr Moore: No we will give you an extension. No problem. Relax; you can have an extension.
MR WOOD: All right. He made a great deal of noise about other schools not being disadvantaged, and we said that. We made that absolutely clear. What did we do to ensure that? We maintained the staffing in schools adjacent to Cook and Lyons so that when their numbers dropped, as they did on the reopening, they did not have to rearrange their classes halfway through the year from losing teachers. That cost us, as per my interjection, over $120,000. That is how we helped other schools. (Extension of time granted) The figures clearly show that we did protect other schools. We did not impact on them and - - -
Mr De Domenico: What about the private schools that you took money from?
MR WOOD: You can go down that track. The passage of time demonstrates how accurate that was and how much on the ball the Chief Minister was.
Mr Kaine raised a matter of "legal advice". I indicated in my ministerial statement that Dr Willmot had carried on the argument. He was quite passionately involved in this debate. I said that he was too passionately involved and that he had great trouble - indeed, he has not accepted it to this day, it seems - in accepting that there was a new government and new policies that he had to serve. I think that part of the reason for the inflated figure we got was to support the case he had been running and to discourage us from carrying out our announced policy. He carried that on afterwards, because after Ms Follett's answer in the Assembly he did raise the issue of the correctness of that answer. As I said earlier, I listened most carefully because I am sensitive to those matters.
Then Mr Kaine brings up an isolated page which might well be in the form of a note for file or an aide-memoire or something of that nature. I am not sure what other status it has, because it is not identified. The letter clearly makes the point that I have been arguing - that Dr Willmot carried on his argument.
Mr Kaine: Did he advise you that you had misled the house?
MR WOOD: We had that discussion.
Mr Kaine: That he had legal advice to that effect.
MR WOOD: That was his discussion. To that, my answer now is, as was my answer to his approach to me at that time, "So what?".
Mr Kaine: So what? That is exactly the point. You misled the house, and the answer from you is, "So what?".
MR WOOD: There was no official departmental - - -
Mr Connolly: Where is that advice?
Mr Kaine: I presume that it is on the departmental files.
Mr Connolly: No.
Mr Humphries: It must have been oral advice.
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