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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2173 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I took that very seriously. I believe that it was appropriate for the Government to consider it very seriously. In fact, I did everything that I possibly could to encourage the Government to change its mind. I would say that I have probably met with Mrs Carnell or the Minister for Education, Mr Stefaniak, daily for the last couple of weeks to try to encourage a change or to find a way to fund education appropriately. Why did I do that? The reason is that Australia has the lowest education funding of OECD nations. That is not something to be proud of. It is something we should be particularly embarrassed about. We should not look to the other States and say, "We can do it for a lower amount". We should be leading in this area and saying, "We believe that education is important. We do not believe it appropriate that we have the lowest funding for education in the OECD. We should be increasing expenditure, not decreasing it or keeping it the same".

My efforts to restore the $3.8m will at best, I believe, keep the education budget the same. The education budget has taken cut after cut for a decade or so. There comes a point at which the impact this has on our kids has to be self-evident. I believe that that has already happened. I believe that it is already self-evident and that we should increase funding on education rather than decrease it. At the every least, we should maintain it. The claims that we have heard from the Government that they have done this are simply not true. There has been a bit of fancy paperwork to try to present it that way, but the truth is that there is a cut of at least $3.8m and probably $4.7m. There is certainly $3.8m that we can identify in a simple and straightforward way. I was very serious about asking the Government to reconsider the education budget. I believe that my view was accepted by Mr Kaine and Mr Hird, although Mr Kaine has pointed out that he is not of that opinion. Nevertheless, he found it appropriate that the Government should consider it. I believe that the motion that Ms Follett puts up will encourage the Government to look at it carefully again. Once again I would ask the Government, as I have asked them every day for the last couple of weeks, to consider that very carefully.

Mr Speaker, I would just like to take up one point that Mr Kaine raised about the Assembly budget. He made a big fuss about the Assembly budget. He said that he had not lost any staff and that the Assembly budget was okay. Maybe Mr Kaine leaves early and is not subjected to the inconvenience of the way that security now operates in the Assembly. The Administration and Procedure Committee, of which I am a member, made a decision that the area of least pain and the area that least affected the workings of the Assembly was security. If Mr Kaine wants to offer as an alternative that some of those savings come from his staffing, we will consider it; but I imagine that he will not get much support from other members on that. I chose the area of least pain for a budget that runs to less than half of any similar budget of any other parliament in Australia. I remind the Chief Minister that she was part of an Estimates Committee that recommended bringing the Assembly budget to its former level, so I find some measure of double standards in the fact that only a year later she has cut it.

Mr Berry: Nay; hypocrisy.

MR MOORE: Mr Berry interjects with the word "hypocrisy". I did not use that word, Mr Speaker; I used the term "double standards".

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