Page 717 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (10.51): Madam Speaker, Mr Cornwell's motion calls on the Assembly to urge the ACT Government to deal flexibly - I emphasise "flexibly" - with the problem of school closures in the ACT in the interests of educational fairness and equity - and I emphasise "fairness and equity". It really is an astonishing motion. I am flabbergasted that a member of the Liberal Party would stand up and propose such a motion. Mr Cornwell was not in the First Assembly - - -
Ms Follett: He was in the gallery.
MR WOOD: He was certainly very well aware of what went on. As Ms Follett points out, he sat among the benches just beyond that little wall day after day; now he stands up and proposes such a motion. The Liberal Party is saying one thing, but it did something entirely different. The wording of the motion reads all right. If someone wandered in from the street and read that, they would say, "What is wrong with it?". It is not the motion to which I and the Labor Party, and maybe other people, object; it is the total intention behind that motion. We heard that when Mr Cornwell was speaking some little time ago in this adjourned debate. What did the Liberal Party do when they were in government? Did they deal flexibly with the problem of school closures?
Mr Humphries: Yes, that is right. We changed our mind.
MR WOOD: You did not. Mr Humphries said that he changed his mind. He did not change his mind. The Alliance Government did not change its mind. The community forced that change on the Government. The whole community, in association with the ALP and other members of this Assembly, forced that change of mind. What did Mr Humphries do as a representative of the Government in relation to school closures but walk out one day and say, "We are going to close up to 25 schools"?
Mr Cornwell: He did not say that at all.
MR WOOD: I thought you were there, Mr Cornwell. Maybe you did not sit in on the joint party meetings.
Mr Humphries: An ambit claim.
Mr Moore: An ambit claim. But he can be honest now that he is not in government.
MR WOOD: Exactly. I will acknowledge that, Mr Moore, and we will get that on the record. I think it says a lot. Mr Humphries went on - in a spirit of flexibility, I wonder - to say, "We are not going to discuss the decision. That is not up for debate. We are not going to argue about that. We will talk about the criteria for closing the schools and which schools they will be, but we have made the decision and that is it". That is the flexibility that Mr Cornwell now starts to argue about. That is flexibility. What nonsense we have coming from the other side of the Assembly!
I do not take a very favourable view of this motion, certainly not of the intentions behind it. It was only the strong reaction by the community and the ALP and others that prevented Mr Humphries and the assault of the Alliance Government; so it did not work out. But that was your intention. It did not work out.
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