Page 4198 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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It does set a precedent, and I want to talk about that precedent. When this passes today that will allow further Appropriation Bills to be dealt with in the same way. This will allow us to set caveats. I would suggest, as you think about the next budget, that you begin negotiating and talking to members of the Assembly.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.08): Madam Speaker, I want to correct this perception about promises of smaller classes and the like. It has been raised a number of times. I am sure that the Liberals understand this. We have a broad policy objective which we print out every year after our conference and in it we spell out our long-term, broad goals. Mr Humphries, I think, accurately quoted from that.
Mr Moore: That was not about what you went to the election on.
MR WOOD: When we go to the election, Mr Moore, we are quite specific. We say exactly what we intend to do. I have to tell you that we did not make any commitments about class size in our three-year proposal for the ACT electorate because I knew then that we were not in a position to fund that. I should make that clear.
The same point applies to what Mr Humphries said, quite wrongly, about the Chief Minister and me being in conflict about school closures. In the Estimates Committee I said, quite clearly, "Sure, in the future schools have to close". I am not going to say that a school will never close, but I never said that there will be any closures in the next year before the election, or the next year in a few months. We will come out ahead of the next election and again state a policy on school closures. We will state that policy. We will be specific. Then you can hold me to that. I felt that I needed to make that point.
Madam Speaker, I regret that a lot of the things that have been said today were not said earlier this year. I think they should have been, but I have made that point over and over again. Madam Speaker, we have an amendment that I think is unfortunate. I think it is irresponsible, but it appears likely to be passed by this Assembly. The Government has made it quite clear that we see it as difficult to interpret. Obviously, I will obey the law. Just as obviously, I am going to have to spend a lot of time deciding what this means. It is going to take quite a deal of interpretation. Just as obviously, I do not want to make those savings in education in the ways that the Liberals have suggested. I do not want to attack teaching conditions, which is something we did not do. Obviously, you have given me a sizeable problem and I now have to work through it, or I will, should this go through.
MR MOORE (5.11): Madam Speaker, I have a few minutes. Somebody is bringing down for me a copy of the Labor Party policy which I referred to.
Mr Wood: I have it here. Do you want it? Which one?
MR MOORE: The youth policy is the policy that I referred to. Mr Wood is going to be most helpful, as always. I want to show where you set out education as your highest priority. That is the issue that I was taking you to task over.
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