Page 4353 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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Intellectually Disabled Students
MR CORNWELL: My question is addressed to Mr Wood, as Minister for Education. Mr Wood, why have only nine places been made available in the 1995 mainstream integration program for students with mild to moderate disabilities, when I understand that something like 46 applied? Do you not agree that the acceptance of nine, from 46, is a token gesture and further disappoints and frustrates those already in the program at the preschool or kindergarten level when they are rejected for the program in the higher years of schooling?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, it is not a token gesture. I am a bit surprised that Mr Cornwell raises this now. I wonder why he did not raise it three years ago, when we began our integration program. Perhaps he did not know about it. Let me tell him what has happened here, because he does not even know. He has not been part of this debate. He would not have any idea of it. Now, suddenly, he wants to show an interest. Let me tell him what happened here. We came into government and we had - - -
Mr Cornwell: I do not want the history; I want the answer to the question, please.
MR WOOD: You are going to get the history, because you do not know the history. You asked the question. You are going to get the answer. We have a very proud record in running our integration program. It is one for which the Government, quite properly, has achieved recognition from the community most concerned about it. When we came into government, there was no such program, and there was a fairly strong segregation of people with intellectual and physical disabilities into special schools. That was the record in the ACT ahead of self-government. I came into the position of Minister for Education and changed that. The ACT Government, year after year, with the enthusiastic support of the ACT Treasurer, Rosemary Follett, has funded that change.
Mr Cornwell: Come on; answer the question.
MR WOOD: You have a totally wrong perception of this, because you do not know anything. You do not know what it is all about.
Mr Humphries: One chance in five of getting into the program.
MR WOOD: You were Education Minister and you sat on your hands. You did not do a thing. To be fair to you, Mr Humphries, I do not think you recognised that there was a problem there. I do not think you gave it thought or consideration or any attention at all. It was left to me to do something, because you did not know about it. If you did, you would not have done anything.
Three years ago, we started. The Treasurer provided funds, and we have had a regular program of integrating intellectually disabled students into mainstream schools. It has been a very successful program. We took a deliberate decision that it would be a phased introduction. That was done with the knowledge of and, as I recall, the acceptance by most of the parents that this was the way to go. Mr Cornwell displays the ignorance of those people opposite - - -
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