Page 3409 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 13 October 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
So what do we want to do? We listen to the Grants Commission, reduce our retention rate and have even more kids unemployed and on the dole in a Territory that has the highest unemployment rates amongst its young people.
It is really a question for Labor. The Grants Commission suggested that you are free to set your own priorities. This Government does set its own priorities, and its priority for education is low. Its priority for education is lower than its priority for Floriade, for flowers; it is lower than its priority for the parks and gardens, in the same Minister's portfolio. I could run through a range of other areas where the priorities could be set differently, but it is the role of the Government to set its priorities and for us to be critical of those if they are set in a weird way.
Labor supposedly delivered on its policy of presenting an extra 0.5 positions for high school counsellors. Mr Wood is very proud of that, and so he should be because he delivered on his policy last year. Let me read to you, Madam Speaker, what the president of the Canberra High School P and C Association says about that priority:
To cut teaching staff in high schools is absolutely deplorable. In the previous budget an extra half teacher per high school was provided to assist in promoting student welfare.
Obviously he was very pleased about that, and so he ought to have been. Now five times that level of resources is being taken away and must leave student welfare worse off than before the last budget, when the Government felt obliged to do something to improve it. On the one hand, the Government pretends to deliver its promise and then, under another guise, simply removes more than it delivered.
Contrast this Minister's approach - at least he has been honest enough to identify where he is going to make his cuts; he will cut 80 teachers - with that of the Minister sitting next to him, the Minister for Health. There will be $3m of cuts in health - somewhere, perhaps, if they think they might be able to get around to it at some stage. They do not know where the cuts will be. They are not going to tell us. In the Estimates Committee the Minister for Health said that he had to negotiate with the unions and go through all the processes, and that is why he could not tell us. The Minister for Education, on the other hand, is not worried about unions in this case. He says, "Sorry, unions. Eighty teachers are going and we are going to continue to cut education".
Labor has cut education for the last 10 years. When was the last time a Labor government having control of Canberra actually increased funding to education? Labor has been cutting education, and it intends to continue cutting education. The forward projections make it very clear that it is Labor's intention to lower the priority of education to the lowest common denominator. One thing that has given them a little bit of armament is their interpretation of the Auditor-General's report, but a fair interpretation of the Auditor-General's report - - -
Mr Wood: I have made no comment on it. I have made no interpretation.
MR MOORE: I have an interjection from this Minister, who clearly was not listening to his own Chief Minister. Perhaps if he listened occasionally he would have more of her respect. The Auditor-General's report falls into two parts.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .