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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2515 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Mr Moore even accepted that we have delivered on what we said we would do. I know that he would like a lot of other things added in. In fact, I think the Greens said that if you wanted to do that it would probably be about $13m more. That really is not what it is all about. We have actually done what we said we would do.

Mr Wood, let us go back a couple of years and see what was debated in 1993. I was going through Hansard, and it is absolutely fascinating. What you people said - - -

Mr Wood: What page do you have there, Mr Stefaniak?

MR STEFANIAK: I will go through a couple of pages, Mr Wood.

Mr Wood: Tell me.

MR STEFANIAK: I will. What you people said was very elucidating. Let us go to page 4138 on 25 November 1993. In the first paragraph on that page, Mr Wood, the then Minister, said:

Madam Speaker, acting from the central point that our Commonwealth funding will continue to shrink, I have not accepted the literally unbelievable argument that we can continue spending as much as ever on education. Instead of merely accepting the situation, we should find new, affordable ways of delivering relevant learning and training to our students. We are already building on the foundation of a very successful education system. The Auditor-General's report has some very good news about the effectiveness of our school system. One instance is the great success enjoyed by graduates of ACT government school systems in gaining entrance to universities.

He went on about that.

Mr Whitecross: Is this the one you have just cut the funding from?

MR STEFANIAK: No. The interesting thing there, Mr Whitecross, is about the Commonwealth funding and the "unbelievable argument that we can continue spending as much as ever on education". This is from your party, the previous Government.

Mr Whitecross: You are just cutting the funding.

MR STEFANIAK: I will come to that. I have another interesting quote from Mr Wood about "you cannot keep the status quo". Let us go to the second paragraph on page 4140. Mr Wood said:

There are, accordingly, new prospects for not just maintaining but improving the quality of ACT schooling, and they do not depend upon a mode of teaching and learning essentially unchanged since the last century.

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