Page 718 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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It was your intention to close all those schools. You were not successful, but you wanted to be successful and it was a great failure on your part. In fact, your approach on that occasion was, "We have made our decision. You cop it".
Mr Cornwell: What about Fisher and Page?
MR WOOD: I have said this often in this chamber. I joined a picket. I joined the community protest on Page and that was the same thread that you picked up when you came into government. It was the same influence with the Federal Government, that then ran this show, to close schools that you accepted when you came in. We rejected that and we always opposed that notion. You promised, when you made that statement about closing up to 25 schools, to be quite inflexible. You said, in effect, "We have made our decision. You cop it".
Madam Speaker, the next point I want to raise is the need to deal with schools with fairness and equity. Yes, I agree. Let us deal with schools with fairness and equity. We all say that. But what are schools? Schools are collections of students and you need to deal with students with fairness and equity. You must not forget, as your Government did, that when you are talking about a school you are not talking about a building. I am sure that that is all you could see. You are not talking about a building. You are talking about bodies in that building. You are talking about young children, older children, adolescents and quite mature young people. That is what you are talking about, and we need to deal with those people with fairness and equity. The Labor Party does, but the Liberals do not.
Let me come to the case that prompted Mr Cornwell's motion - Griffith Primary School. In that situation the Government dealt flexibly, it dealt with fairness and it dealt with equity.
Mr Cornwell: What about this 13 February quote, "Griffith Primary will remain open for at least the term of the current ACT Labor Government"? Mr Wood said that.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, the situation with Griffith was, regrettably, that the local community left it. Its numbers were reasonably steady. There was some obvious long-term decline as the population changed; but, for reasons that I am still assessing, the community decided that it did not want to enrol its children at that school any more. The community made the decision that that school should close. In the end there were under 40 students remaining at that school and the parents recognised - I attended meetings with them - that it was no longer a viable prospect. The decision was taken to cease operations on the Griffith campus of what was actually the Griffith-Narrabundah Primary School for 1993.
Mr Cornwell mentioned the survey that we will undertake later in the year. I believe that that is dealing fairly with the community and it is certainly dealing flexibly with the community. Only yesterday I met representatives of the Griffith campus to talk about the future of the school, to talk about the survey and to maintain contact. So we have not walked out on that school, on those parents and, most particularly, on the students. We have dealt fairly with them. We have been generous in our support of the students who have gone to other schools.
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