Page 1618 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 19 May 1993
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These are not simply questions being posed by the Liberal Party, Madam Speaker. Editorials have questioned the direction of this Labor Government and its education policies, while the ACT branch of the Australian Teachers Union, in something of an historic decision, has publicly announced that it will not automatically oppose school closures. In taking this position the editorial writers and the ATU are simply reflecting what the community itself and many, many teachers are saying; that is, that in difficult economic times the education dollar needs to be as carefully spent as any other portfolio's purse and we cannot expect, far less put into practice, the quarantining of education from financial realities. Yet this is what the Follett Labor Government appears to be doing.
I say "appears" because there are indications that this Government does recognise the financial problem it faces with education and the impossible position it is placed in by its Chief Minister's stubborn refusal to admit that she is wrong. What the Government has done is, firstly, quietly cut back on some activities or undertakings and, secondly, pass the responsibility for hard decisions to others. It has not passed unnoticed, for example, that team sport at the primary level has been abandoned and school sport or physical education, on average, reduced to 90 minutes per week - the lowest rate in Australia. Such cutbacks will save money and probably have the advantage of being ideologically sound, at least as far as contact sports are concerned, but one wonders what it does for the physical well-being of ACT students. This criticism does not come only from the Liberal Party. Mrs Kelly, the Labor member for Canberra, is on record as condemning these cuts in the Canberra Times of 14 November. Unfortunately, she also is on record as promising to do everything she could to reverse the decision, in the Canberra Times of 26 November, and, not surprisingly, we are still waiting - post-Federal election, of course.
Then we have the case of the Kingston library, which is to move, in 1994, to the old Griffith Primary site. While I have no argument with the decision, which will save rent and make use of a publicly owned facility, and whilst I have heard the Minister's reply to Ms Szuty at question time, I do wonder what expectations the Griffith school community still harbour that a review will be held in October to see whether the school could reopen. The closure of Griffith Primary itself is the best example of how the Government passes the responsibility for hard decisions to others, claiming, as it has and still does, that the parents closed the school and that the Labor Government had no direct involvement in the closure.
Finally, we have the Auditor-General's inquiry into ACT education. Again, the Government professes to be at arm's length from the action, thus trying to ensure that, should any unpopular or even unpalatable recommendations emerge from the investigation, the Follett Government will not be held responsible for their creation, even if it may have to implement these suggestions, however reluctantly. The Government, it would seem to me, is more interested in protecting its own position than in providing the leadership, and through it the quality of education, that we have come to expect in the ACT. That is not to say that education standards have slipped, they have not; but they are in danger of deteriorating because of the inflexible attitude of the Government towards the inevitability of rationalisation. Again, this is not only the Liberal Party's view. It is also the view of the president of the ACT branch of the Australian Teachers Union, Rosemary Richards. I will quote from the Canberra Times of 13 January.
Mr De Domenico: She is not a member of the Liberal Party, is she?
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