Page 1627 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 19 May 1993
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activities during school hours at the local school. These activities were conducted without inconvenience to teachers or students and provided a very important outlet for these young women. That is lateral thinking, Madam Speaker, imaginative and of benefit to the community. This report highlighted a use for schools that really had never been touched on in detail before, and this is the type of thing that I am talking about - using these valuable facilities for the community. With this broader, more adventurous approach, I believe that we can, in fact, rationalise schools more and maximise the education dollar, not with the blinkered view of the Opposition.
MS SZUTY (4.19): Madam Speaker, I, and many other Canberrans, I am sure, are appalled at the naivety shown by the Liberal Party's latest attack on the ACT government school system. It appears that the Liberal Party has refused to learn the lesson of the school closures debate which saw the shaky Alliance Government falter and eventually crumble. Members of the Liberal Party still insist on seeing education as a numerical equation of so many children equals so many schools.
I want to place on the record my dismay at again being forced to rise and state the obvious. Schools are not only the bricks and mortar which enclose a teaching environment; schools are points of contact in the community, as Ms Ellis has said. They are focal points for the children, parents, community and sporting groups that use their facilities, and they are a reinforcement of the notion that, at its heart, the Canberra community has the educational interests and welfare of children as a major concern. Madam Speaker, I find it astounding that the Liberal Party, while represented on the Social Policy Committee's inquiry into community use of schools, is pursuing an agenda that would pre-empt that review. To discuss rationalisation of school facilities during this inquiry is to give the community an impression that its views are being heard to only a limited degree. What confidence can anyone have in coming forward to present views on the community use of schools when there appears to be an unsettling agenda from the Liberal Party to bring about the closure of some schools?
The Liberal Party would have us believe that a comparison between the number of school enrolments and an assessment of surplus space presents a realistic picture of how our schools are performing. Madam Speaker, the role of schools has changed substantially over the years, and the functions and programs that they now have responsibility for have implications for the space needed. In fact, I heard some people on Matthew Abraham's program this morning talking to Ms Ellis about this very point. This, indeed, is an issue which could be taken up over the need to recognise some schools as disadvantaged and to fund them accordingly.
The executive summary for the census states that enrolments for preschools have increased over the past 12 months by some 208 students, a 5.2 per cent rise. Over the past two years there has been a rise in preschool enrolments of nearly 8 per cent. The recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures for Canberra show rises in the nought to four years, five to nine and 10 to 11 age groups of over 2,300 children. Of these, 1,500 are in the nought to four years age group. If we accept the need to close schools because of what the Liberal Party sees as spare capacity, we are not taking a long-term view. But I will continue to
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