Page 3950 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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speak for themselves. It is quite clear, as Mr Wood has said, that Mr Moore is a relative latecomer to education as a priority. He did not take up the issue until he was caught on the hop, and now he seeks to restore his credibility. Doing so at the expense of a capable Minister is not the way to do it.
Madam Speaker, I believe that the no-confidence motion is ill conceived in a number of other respects also. First of all, Mr Moore has completely failed to acknowledge the real origins of the ACT's financial circumstances and their implications for the education budget. Mr Moore, I presume, expects never to be in government, so he does not have to concern himself with budgets, or financial responsibility, or any of that sort of stuff; but, in looking at a motion like this, I think every member of the Assembly ought to look at those sorts of issues.
Secondly, Madam Speaker, the motion is mistaken, I believe, in its relationship between a motion of the Assembly and the responsibilities of the Executive. I would turn, first of all, to the broader context. I said in the budget speech this year that the Territory faces the biggest cut in the history of Commonwealth-State financial arrangements. The enormity of the challenge, the pace of change that has been forced upon us, really comes home to you when you consider that the next largest cut was, in fact, the one we faced the year before. Madam Speaker, you simply cannot ignore those facts. It is irresponsible to do so. Yet the motion before us seems absolutely oblivious to the changes that we need to make. They are changes which arebeing forced upon us. As a responsible Government we do have to take responsible decisions. We certainly have to do that if we are to secure our Territory's financial future. We have seen the experience of other States who have not always managed their finances responsibly. I do not believe that anyone in this chamber would want to see those circumstances replicated in this Territory, ever.
The Government has put forward a responsible and realistic budget. It is a budget that accepts the very bad news that we have had from the Commonwealth and translates it into what I believe is a responsible and caring approach to protecting services in our community. Commonwealth funding, as members know, is being progressively reduced and the transition funding, of which education's share is some $25m, will be phased out. It will not be there. We cannot just sit here in cloud-cuckoo-land, as Mr Moore seems to want us to do, and pretend that this is not happening and it is not going to happen. I believe that a proactive stance taken by the Government now can avoid a great deal of pain for this community in the future and can, in particular, avoid the sort of situation that we see in other States. In Victoria, for instance, over 200 schools are being closed. Is that what you want, Mr Moore? Do you want us to embark on the Liberals' option and close 25 schools? Mr Cornwell has referred to me as "this stubborn Chief Minister" for not closing schools. Madam Speaker, we will protect the neighbourhood school system and we will protect the social justice of every Canberra child having equal access to a government school of high standard. Mr Moore knows that that is not the Opposition's policy.
Madam Speaker, in seeking to make what are very necessary adjustments the Government, as Mr Wood said, has looked hard and long at all of the options available to us, and we have looked also at reducing the costs of programs right across the board. At the same time we have been very much aware of protecting the services to the community. Education, being a fifth of the budget, our second largest program, simply cannot be quarantined from the savings that are expected across all government programs. It should be remembered that in last year's
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