Page 3540 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Mr Berry is in full flight. I hate to stop him, but he is not asking a question; he is making a statement. I would ask him to come to the question.
MR BERRY: I will get to the question; do not worry about it. You will get the question; and I am sure that you will get an answer from the relevant Minister. The education spokesperson talked about 17 schools. My question is directed to Mr Wood and relates to this horror story, this vision, whatever you want to call it. I would like the Minister to go just a little further on a few matters of detail. These will be the sorts of details that will worry the Liberals; it will get them off their seats, I am sure. I would want to hear a little about the impact of this competition that Mrs Carnell has been talking about in relation to the schools system.
MR WOOD: Mr Berry commented that this would worry the Liberals. I did notice earlier, after my previous answer, that Mr De Domenico scurried to photocopy the article that I referred to. He was looking at it in a most worried manner. I am not surprised. He might also go back a little further to an item in the Canberra Weekly which quoted Mrs Carnell as saying, about health and education, "We've got to take a big, big re-look and look at whether the Government should be providing those services at all".
Her notion of competition seems to be to pick up the schools and throw them to the wolves. Look at the words she uses: "Marketing our schools", "good solid bit of competition", "corporate sponsorship", "benchmarking". Mrs Carnell sees schools as a business; she does not see schools as caring, humane, educational places. She has been asked to give her vision, and her vision is of money and numbers. Mrs Carnell has a vision of unfettered competition among government schools. She sees schools competing for students in the same way as small businesses might compete for customers.
Surely Mrs Carnell is not suggesting that each school, particularly schools with declining enrolments, should market specialised products or find a niche market like specialised soap shops, a hamburger shop or a corner store. That seems to be what she is saying. I wonder what the result of such a policy would be in five, 10 or 20 years' time. If we look to the big, wide world of commerce that she envies so much, the answer is quite plain. Some small businesses do survive and grow; they may open up other branches and become major institutions. But many small businesses fail. That has been the norm over many years. They will lose customers, not have enough turnover and go bankrupt. A lot of their customers will be hurt in that process. Mrs Carnell, with her business-oriented approach, is suggesting that this is the path for schools.
The main point is that Mrs Carnell's "vision" of healthy competition is superficial and flawed. Any close analysis of the real world reveals that her view is an idealised myth. It seems that a lot of Mrs Carnell's ideas come, Bronwyn Bishop-like, from this book. Remember that it was their hero, Bronwyn Bishop, that the Liberals brought into this Assembly to tell them how to do things.
Mr De Domenico: What books do you read? Noddy? Do you read Biggles? Do you read books, or do you get your information off whiteboards, like Mrs Kelly?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
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