Page 1223 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 1993
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So presumably $7m of that estimated $18m loss will be in the change in the treatment of differences in retention rates at years 11 and 12. But what has the Government done about this, Madam Speaker? Mr Wood spoke earlier about consultation. There is no note in this Feedback that the Government has sought consultation with the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations in relation to this very important $7m reduction. None whatsoever.
Further, in the same Feedback, we have a report from the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Education. Mr Wood, again, is speaking about consulting with organisations in education and the rest of the community. In that report this statement appears:
Members of the MAC are treating this reference -
a reference to provide advice on quality education for all students in the ACT -
as a long-term project and have decided not to provide advice to be taken into account in framing the schools budget for 1993-94.
What we have here is the MAC making a decision as to whether they are going to contribute to the budget or not. I would suggest, Mr Wood, that if you appoint these organisations you might like to ask them to make a contribution. It appears that they are making up their own minds whether they are going to be consulted or not. I do not say that I blame them, because I do not think they are going to get very much out of you, or your Government.
These examples, Madam Speaker, would be sad if they were not so serious. They indicate reluctance on the part of the Government to consult. I remind members of a comment earlier today by the Minister for Health that, so far as the Acton Peninsula was concerned, there was no consultation on the positioning of the hospice. This is a government that talks about consultation. There was no consultation on where the hospice should go. There was no consultation whatsoever about the hospice. Yet this Government stands up and argues that they consult with the community. The evidence, I suggest, speaks for itself. This is from a consultative government. I would suggest that that example alone gives little comfort and certainly no confidence to the Canberra community.
Again, it is hardly surprising, because way back on 7 April 1992 I asked the Chief Minister, in relation to community consultative meetings, whether she was going to have any more than the one that she held on 1 June 1989 at the Northside Community Centre.
Mrs Carnell: Did you get an answer?
MR CORNWELL: Yes, I did, Mrs Carnell. It took seven months to provide. What had happened was that there were no consultations taking place along the lines of that first consultative meeting of the community at the Northside Community Centre. It took them seven months to dream up an answer. Is it not interesting? There is silence from the government benches now. It took them seven months, and then they waffled on, saying, "Well, actually, these were being set up by the Labor Party and we were not going to invite anybody else. It was paid for by the Labor Party". I would have imagined, Madam Speaker, that if that had been the case, if that had been the guideline set down, it would not have taken the Chief Minister of this Labor Government seven months to produce an answer for me on that question. So much for your much vaunted consultation process.
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