Page 3962 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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It is pretty obvious to me, therefore, that we do not really know, Madam Speaker, where this Government is going to make its cuts. It really has no plan. The only thing that we do know is that they have decided to target teachers because the Government is locked into the commitment that the Chief Minister made before the last Assembly election that no school would close within the first three years of a Labor government. That promise, as we all know, has already been broken in relation to Griffith Primary School, which was reduced to 34 pupils, I must admit, before the Government finally conceded that it was not possible to keep that school open.
Mr De Domenico: Was that a neighbourhood school, though?
MR CORNWELL: Thank you, Mr De Domenico; that was indeed a neighbourhood school. I think the Government acted upon Griffith Primary just in time. The wrath of the public school community would have been down upon them had they not closed Griffith, for the simple reason that it was costing more money than the average to keep open and therefore, of course, that had a deleterious effect upon all other government schools. We have this stubborn adherence to this promise which has now led to this absurd suggestion that 80 teachers should be cut out of the government school system. We have no guarantees. I have noted the various areas that Mr Wood spoke of that could be options; but, as Mr Moore has said, he has not identified where the cuts should be made.
Mr Wood talks about registered units in schools and colleges, permanent part-time staff, electives in high schools, class sizes increasing in the pastoral care area, the rationalisation of study time for the same subject, and timetables in areas such as languages. He has identified a number of new initiatives, such as optic fibre education and cluster schools working around Lanyon High, which are good initiatives. I suggest to you, Minister, that you are putting the cart before the horse; that you cannot cut down your teacher numbers before you implement these initiatives, this high tech. For heaven's sake, it seems to me that you do not have to be an educational expert to recognise that. Sheer commonsense would indicate that that is the way to go, but this Government is not prepared to address it. They have this problem, obviously, of some sort of ideological hang-up, it seems to me; they will not address the issues of education other than by a brutal attack upon the government school system by cutting 80 teachers.
Madam Speaker, it is entirely appropriate that the Liberals support this censure motion because on Thursday we will be moving to amend the Appropriation Bill. I hope that the majority of Assembly members support us; but, obviously, if we did not support this censure motion against this Government we would be entirely inconsistent with what we are planning to do on Thursday in this house.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.40): Madam Speaker, I would like to speak against the amendment moved by Mrs Carnell. It was moved almost as a throwaway line, I might say, Madam Speaker; but it really does demonstrate, in my view, the silliness of the debate that we are currently having. The fact that they are limping to a conclusion over here indicates a certain lack of passion about the whole matter. Nevertheless, Madam Speaker, what we have seen in Mrs Carnell's amendment is an attempt to trump Mr Moore, just as we saw in Mrs Carnell's citizen-initiated referenda proposal an attempt to trump Mr Stevenson. However irritating that might be to Mr Moore and Mr Stevenson, it demonstrates a certain lack of depth in Mrs Carnell's understanding of the seriousness of the matter that is before the Assembly today.
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