Page 4150 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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The Chief Minister, when she was on her feet, said that had Mr Humphries closed 25 schools we may have lost some janitors. That is true. I agree with Ms Follett. We might lose some janitors if that were to happen. However, if you go out into the community and ask parents, "Would you rather have 80 fewer janitors on the payroll next year or 80 fewer teachers?", we all know what the answer to that question would be. They might say, "We may be prepared on a voluntary basis to do the work of the 80 janitors, but we certainly could not on a voluntary basis do the wonderful work that would have to be done if we did not have 80 fewer teachers".
MR MOORE (12.04): The question of education, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, is one that is going to cause a great deal of anguish, I believe, in this community for some time to come. It appeared to many people at the last election that the Labor Party was the party that would be the one to protect public education. Certainly, they ran very heavily on that concept. But I suppose that, if people had looked back over the last 10 years and seen that the Labor Party had cut education and cut education year after year, they would have really doubted Labor's statement that education was the highest priority.
The Chief Minister today and earlier in the week has stated that education must take its cuts like anything else. If somebody says that education must take its cuts like anything else, they can hardly say that education is the highest priority, because clearly it is on the same priority level as everything else. In fact, it is on a lower priority level because there are areas in the budget that have been preserved by this Government. Health is one example where cuts have not been made to the same extent. If we use a slightly different technique, it would appear that health may well not have been cut at all. Yet another example is tourism. The Government's highest priority has been in those areas, because those areas have not taken cuts.
Apart from that, the Government's approach has been largely to simply say, "We are going to make across-the-board cuts. With a couple of exceptions, it is just cutting the salami", or, as Mr Connolly and I would say, just cutting the fritz.
Mr Connolly: It is a South Australian term. We will explain later.
MR MOORE: It is a South Australian term. I think one of the most interesting things about this debate is that the Minister for Education has stood up time and time again and said - and it has been reiterated today by the Chief Minister: "Why will you not participate in the debate?".
Mr Wood: We know why you do not.
MR MOORE: And there we have the interjection again from the Minister, "You do not". The reason is very simple: We are not going to debate within your parameters. The parameters you set are: "We are going to make education cuts. Now let us debate how we are going to make those education cuts". The question that really remains is: Should you be making the education cuts? That is what we want to debate. Why do you not debate it, Minister? You will not debate it. We are not going to be drawn into the parameters that you set. That is the first point.
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