Page 724 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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Mr Berry: I do not know. I do not believe you, so I do not know.
MR HUMPHRIES: Go and check and see whether I am right. It is a fact of life. If you have only four or five teachers in a school you cannot be sure of offering a full range of sporting opportunities.
Mr Berry: What do you call "a full range"? Twenty sports?
MR HUMPHRIES: A reasonable range.
Mr Berry: How many?
MR HUMPHRIES: Even 10 sports. I think 10 is a reasonable range.
Mr Berry: So you need 10 teachers for 10 sports?
MR HUMPHRIES: Can you offer that in small schools in the ACT? I will tell you now: You cannot.
Mr Wood: Mr Humphries, you teach skills.
MR HUMPHRIES: You teach skills. You do not bother to teach sports; you teach skills. Okay. Madam Speaker, the stress on teachers in small schools in this community is very great. Those teachers, for example, will end up spending a lot of time doing playground duty. A school of only four or five teachers obviously will have to roster at least two teachers on every time. (Extension of time granted) I wonder whether the Minister is aware of the pressure on teachers in small schools.
Mr Wood: I have been in them.
MR HUMPHRIES: Then he knows what teachers have to go through. He knows that teachers are probably the strongest advocates of closing small schools in this community. He knows what the Australian Teachers Union has told him. Would he tell this Assembly? I doubt it.
Mr Wood: That is the union.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is the union; that is right. The union has something to say about members' conditions in these cases and I have to say that I agree with what they have to say about union members' conditions in these circumstances. They are bloody awful in the circumstances of small schools. Those teachers are out there twice or three times a week on playground duty because they cannot get relief. That is not fair. It puts pressure on teachers that they should not be under. There are all sorts of pressures on small schools in that way. This Minister needs to face up to that.
Madam Speaker, I will come to the Minister's defence on one question. He has been accused of white-anting that school, and I think that is an unfair charge. It is also unfair in our case as well. Nobody has white-anted those schools. Those schools have had to face the reality of the fact that with small numbers they get small resources. The Minister could have reversed it,
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