Page 4311 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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set of recommendations, which provide for a totally new approach for the ACT, but which, in some cases, reflect what is happening already, in part or in full, in other parts of Australia. I draw attention to chapter 6 entitled "The situation in other States and Territories". We went to the trouble of seeing how this subject is handled in other areas of the country. Some of our recommendations are reflective of what is already the case in some other areas of the country.
Basically, we have suggested that school communities be encouraged to run their own hiring system. The advantages put to us by the communities already active in this way far outweigh the disadvantages. The Department of Education and Training, obviously, will need to work very closely with teacher unions, other unions and the school communities to come up with a package of proposals and a schedule for schools which want to take part in that sort of arrangement and which we feel confident can do so. The outcome of all of that, we hope, will be a system whereby schools work very closely with the community groups within their region.
One interesting aspect that was put to the committee, one which I found had fantastic potential, was that there are ways of paying for the use of a school facility other than in money. One such proposal was put to us. Say, for instance, a school has a gym and the local first grade basketball team wants to use it and happens to know that that school has a very strong performance in that sport. The team could come to an arrangement with the school whereby part or all of the payment for the use of that facility could be by way of coaching the students at the school. That is the sort of thing that this inquiry uncovered. There are many ways that we can promote a great community life between the schools and people around them. In some cases people do not know that that advantage may be sitting there waiting for them. I think that this has been a very interesting inquiry and it opens up an awful lot of possibilities.
The last chapter in the report, entitled "Future planning and coordination", is basically a reflection of the sorts of things that we believe planners, governments, administrations and communities should take into consideration in any future planning that is going on. We look at Nicholls and a lot of the work that is under way in Gungahlin. We strongly suggest very broad, lateral thinking in terms of planning and building community facilities and school facilities. The potential is there for us to be cleverer, to spend our money in a better way, and, more importantly, in doing so, to bring together many aspects of the community that have not had that potential in front of them in the past.
I want very sincerely to thank members of the committee and the committee secretariat, particularly Kim Bond, the secretary of the committee, for the work that has gone into this report. I can verify that understanding some of the statistics was not easy, but we have drawn our conclusions. I think the challenge now is for the community, the Government and the administration to read this very carefully and to consider very seriously the proposals that we are putting forward. I cannot see anything but great advantage if even part of this is taken into future consideration. It is my pleasure to endorse this report and to commend it to the Assembly.
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