Page 1624 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 19 May 1993
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Mr Cornwell: That is a Labor government, isn't it?
Mrs Carnell: And in Queensland.
MR DE DOMENICO: That is a Labor government. Obviously, there would be some people in South Australia who are very concerned about the decisions made by the South Australian Labor Government, as there would be people concerned in Queensland, as Mrs Carnell rightly says, and as people in the ACT would be concerned. So, it is not just the ACT Liberal Party that has been talking about school closures. I would also remind Mr Wood that it was the Federal Labor Government that closed Page and Fisher. It was not a Liberal government; it was a Labor government. That is the point I am making, Mr Wood. It was not just people on this side of the house that were talking - - -
Mr Wood: Yes. It was not this ACT Government.
MR DE DOMENICO: I will get to that. With respect, we did listen to Mr Cornwell and Mr Wood without interruption. I would expect the same courtesy. You see, Mr Wood, the other thing is that there were five schools closed by the former Alliance Government, and part of that Alliance Government was made up of members of the Liberal Party. Fortunately, the four members of the Liberal Party that are here at the minute were not part of that Government. We are delighted that we were not, for a lot of reasons, let me tell you. There is no doubt about that. But, let us look at the most recent school closure. Mr Wood used the words "not Lego" before. He also said in question time that Griffith was not closed. He said that it was not closed; it was suspended. Mr Cornwell correctly said, "Suspended from where?". We are now told that Mr Wood did not close it; he suspended it. It is like saying to a child, "Listen, I will not expel you, but I will suspend you for the next 20 years". Mr Wood knows what the reality is. I do not think that Griffith will be reopened in Mr Wood's time.
I ask the Minister what will happen if the parents of another school in the ACT that is currently open say to him, "Mr Minister, would you please close our school?". Noting the comments made about community consultation, Mr Wood then has a dilemma. Will he listen to what the community is saying and close the school, or will he think about the political ramifications first and the fact that the Chief Minister has said, "There will be no schools closed during this term of government"? Mr Wood would be in a dilemma. That is the sort of dilemma that any government of any political persuasion would be in. What I am saying, Mr Minister, is that it is not just members on this side of the house who need to face reality; it is people on your side as well.
Mr Wood also said that there is a lot of quality in education that can be achieved in having bigger schools. I agree with him. Like him, I was educated at schools of some 1,000 pupils. I believe, although some people might disagree, that my education has not been too bad at all. In the next breath he says that we do not need to have only small schools. If there is no need to have only small schools, has any thought been given to the possibility of having more bigger schools and therefore rationalising the amount of money we spend rather than having a lot of small schools? If we are going to take that to a logical extension, perhaps we are all agreeing, and that is perhaps a revelation in terms of the education debate.
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