Page 3538 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, I note that. Government schools are my responsibility, and I am here to protect them. I am delighted that the Liberals are so anxious about this; they should be anxious about it, because I have no doubt that the community will utterly reject their elitist approach. It is an elitist approach; it is a case of throw the schools to the wolves, and the survival of the fittest. That is what their approach is. That is what you are promoting, and you will go down in a heap once more.
Mr De Domenico: Go and make a decision. Get some carports built; get a decision on some carports.
MR WOOD: Mr De Domenico should not interject, because he does not know the history of it. The Liberals will go down in a heap once more on this issue. With per capita funding, the future of every school below a set number would be immediately threatened. That is something that we are not going to do.
Mr Cornwell is absent. I am not criticising Mr Cornwell's absence; he is representing me somewhere, and I am pleased about that. The Liberals have an obsession with numbers. Schools are either too large or too small; and we are criticised because some of our new schools are, it is alleged, too large. He does not seem to want us to have larger schools; he does not want us to have smaller schools. Why cannot they get away from this obsession with numbers? Why cannot they think about what schools are really all about? They should look at what happens in schools. That should be the focus for the Liberals. I am afraid that any Liberal Minister in this town, if ever such a creature emerged again, would be disastrous.
Home Help Service
MR STEVENSON: Madam Speaker, my question is to Mr Lamont and concerns home help. I am aware of a couple in their 70s - the wife can barely walk; and the husband has difficulty doing the more vigorous chores around the house - who have been unable to receive home help, even though their doctor has interceded on their behalf. I will certainly supply the Minister with specific details of this case. I would like the Minister to inform the house about the general situation with regard to home help. Have there been any budget cutbacks affecting the provision of home help?
MR LAMONT: I thank the member for his question. Let me say at the outset, in answer to the last part of your question, Mr Stevenson: No, there has not been any cutback in relation to the HACC program for 1994-95; nor is it envisaged that that be the case. What we have done, Mr Stevenson, is provide an additional $580,000, which would be required to be matched by the Commonwealth, for the period 1994-95. At the moment, because the ACT Government's additional amount was in excess of what the Commonwealth was originally prepared to meet, dollar for dollar, we are now awaiting their reassessment. The ACT Government has committed $580,000 additional.
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