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two murders, I think it was, in the ACT. One of those two murders was dealt with by detectives in one of the four regions of the ACT. The other was a matter that has now gone to New South Wales. The average number of cases dealt with by each officer in that unit was, I think, four per officer for nine months. We are not dealing with Fitzgerald scales of issues here. We are dealing with relatively minor sorts of incidents on that scale.

I make no apologies for believing, and carrying through on the belief, that we should be putting resources where they are most needed. The origin of that move, by the way, was not, despite Mr Connolly's suggestion, from me as Minister. It was not even from the management of the AFP. It came from ordinary police officers who do the job in this Territory. They were asked how they wanted to see jobs restructured. They wanted to tell the management how we could best structure their jobs to achieve the best amount of job satisfaction, and their view was to give them a greater role in those things that are the core of good policing. We felt that that was an appropriate thing to do. We have endorsed that with that action in respect of those sorts of activities. That will be a continuing trend in areas that are appropriate.

Education - Budget Provision

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, my question is for Mr Stefaniak as Minister for Education. Mr Stefaniak earlier quoted from a press release of the Australian Education Union. If he reads down a bit further from where he was looking, he will see that they suggested a $4.5m budget shortfall to be made up of cuts of $1.45m from central office; $0.25m from reducing programs; another $1m from school maintenance; charging evening colleges, $0.25m; Birrigai environmental education program, $0.2m; and a further $1.5m in an unspecified manner. Mr Stefaniak, if the education budget has been protected from cuts, why is it that you need to take these kinds of actions?

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Moore, I think that if you have a look at the education budget from year to year you will see that often there has been overspending and often there are demands that have to be met. In the past there have been efficiencies made, as you as an ex-teacher well and truly appreciate, Mr Moore. There are a number of inaccuracies, too, in what the Education Union has said. I will read our party policy, which says on page 3:

A Liberal Government will ... guarantee to maintain current levels of ACT education funding indexed for inflation over the next three years.

This will amount to an increase of approximately $7m in the 1995-96 Budget.

Last year the appropriation was $199.9m. This year, even with our new style of accounting, it is $206.6m. This year the appropriation initially had adjustments made for the transfer of preschools to Children's, Family and Youth Services, which took the straight appropriation to education to $192.1m. Then there was a $2m enrolment adjustment, additional functions transferred to the department, $4.7m, and a real terms increase of $7.77m, making a total of $206.6m. I think that is pretty good in anyone's language.

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