Page 3954 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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Mr Berry: There is an imputation there that the Treasurer - - -
Mr Humphries: Well, it is true, is it not? It is absolutely true.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Humphries, order!
MRS CARNELL: I am just quoting you. I know that it is a bit of a mistake.
Mr Berry: Imputations that people are lying are not permitted, Madam Speaker. I think there was a clear imputation there in relation to the Treasurer and Chief Minister.
MADAM SPEAKER: I have ruled on this before. Mrs Carnell, I believe that you will withdraw?
MRS CARNELL: I certainly will. Madam Speaker, resources have not been redirected; they have been cut. The Government's own research showed that in 1992 more than 10 per cent of junior primary classes and 37 per cent of senior primary classes had over 30 pupils. The policy says that we should be looking at 25. It does not seem to be going in the right direction, Madam Speaker. Class sizes are increasing, not decreasing as the Labor Party policy says they should be. By reducing teaching staff by 80 positions, how can the Treasurer honestly claim that her budget will deliver social justice to students, to teachers and to parents with children in government schools?
Madam Speaker, this no-confidence motion must be amended to include the Treasurer because these cutbacks in education strike at the very heart of planning for the ACT's future, of which the budget is an integral part. Budgets handed down by the Treasurer in this Assembly show clearly that she seems to be incapable of producing a credible program. The report of the 1993-94 Select Committee on Estimates was extremely critical of the Government's budget strategy on education, and we will debate that later today. It said categorically that in budgets you cannot have savings that are not specific. Well, Mr Berry can, of course; but you cannot have savings if you cannot show where they are going to be found.
Mr Berry: You do not know. You just do not understand. You are so silly and misinformed. You need to get out in the real world and understand these things. You have not been there yet. You have been hiding in the little pharmacy.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry, you have spent your savings in one quarter. I would not say too much on this. You have a $3m overrun. That is your total saving. Of course, nobody expects terribly much more from Mr Berry.
In education, Madam Speaker, as in many other areas of the budget, expenditure cuts have been untargeted. I think that the comments made by Mr Moore were very valid. If Mr Wood had been able to show us, if the Government had been able to show us, that these cuts were not going to upset the quality of public education in this city we certainly would not have had a problem with them; but there has been no information coming forward to show us that this will not happen. In fact, there has been no information to show us that all that will happen, as we believe it will, with 80 teacher cuts is larger classes at all levels of our schooling system. That is what the Liberal Party is very concerned about.
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