Page 3653 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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The other recommendation on which there is some action, not yet complete, is recommendation 12 - the proposal to establish a Non-government Schools Consultative Committee. That was also a matter in the ALP election policy commitments, and I am moving on that. I am considering who should be chair of that, who should be members, who should be ministerial appointees, as well as those who will represent the various groups.
Mr Cornwell focused the major points of his speech on the most interesting recommendations, Nos. 8, 11 and 14. These refer to transport, new non-government schools, and maybe breaking the nexus between government and non-government schools. I suppose they are interesting from the standpoint of the schools. The recommendation they have most focused on is recommendation 5, which relates to funding and breaking the existing arrangement. I do not think there is any more critical recommendation than that one. It is one that the Government obviously is obliged to consider most seriously. Indeed, a working party has been established, with representatives from the non-government schools, to look at this matter in particular. They have had a couple of meetings at this stage and they are to report in about March next year, which I think will be an appropriate time to report. That is the recommendation that is receiving the most detailed attention. Some of these other recommendations are policy issues, but this one requires a great deal of processing of data to assess exactly the impact of the changes proposed by Berkeley.
I will conclude on the point that arises frequently, the point made by Mr Cornwell that the non-government sector wants more and more independence and at the same time more and more money. I am not sure that those two factors go together very comfortably. If there is to be more and more money, and that is an issue yet to be determined by both the Federal and Territory governments, it seems to me that there is also a requirement that they may have less and less independence because governments will take more and more active interest in what happens to that money. At present there is no direct reporting to the ACT Government about how that money is acquitted - how it is spent and how the schools are using it. There is a recommendation that you mentioned on that and I think it is sensible that we do get information. We provide substantial funds and we have not made that assessment. We rely on what the Commonwealth does because the reporting is to the Commonwealth. Perhaps a sensible proposal on that recommendation is that we get a copy of what is provided to the Commonwealth.
Mr Cornwell: Fine. There has never been any doubt about the accountability, as you know.
MR WOOD: You would agree with that and it may be that that could be the outcome. I make the point that if non-government schools are seeking more of the public resources - whether that is justified is another debate - I do not think they can also argue that they want more and more independence. I think that we have to look, as recommendation 14 does, at the longer term and the overall relationship between government and non-government schools. There seems to
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