Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2517 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Let us now go - - -

Mr Moore: The problem is that she was cutting, but at least she was honest about what she was cutting.

MR STEFANIAK: We will come to that, too, Mr Moore. There is, funnily enough, a 4 per cent increase in education spending in that budget as well, and I will come to that in a minute. Let us go to Ms Follett again, in the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs on page 4146:

Madam Speaker, in looking at the savings for this year and at the plan, I think there are a couple of other things that also ought to be said. I refer again to the Auditor-General's performance audit of the Government's schooling program. I believe that there has been some fairly crude reporting of the Auditor-General's report.

She goes on for the rest of the paragraph about a headline, and then continues in the next paragraph:

What the Auditor-General has said in his report is that there are some areas that could be looked at if you are seeking greater efficiencies in this particular program. It was a performance audit, and that is precisely what the Auditor-General was looking for in undertaking a performance audit - areas of greater efficiency in delivering this program. I think that it would be foolhardy indeed for the Assembly and for the Government to ignore the report of the Auditor-General. I consider that we have been extremely well served by his work. In all of his reports, we have been able to find ways of increasing the efficiency, the management competence and so on in all of our programs.

I am not about to ignore the Auditor-General's report, and I have no doubt that Mr Kaine is not about to ignore it either, as he is the presiding member of the Public Accounts Committee and will, of course, be examining that Auditor-General's report as fully as he does all other Auditor-General's reports. So do not kid yourselves that you can just put it to one side and pretend that it did not happen. It did, and its recommendations, its line of argument, must be taken seriously. Madam Speaker, the strategies that are being implemented this year in education will also be linked to educational developments at the national level, and they will focus on improving educational standards and vocational education and training needs in the Territory.

Mr Speaker, we also have a statement about "cannot expect education to be quarantined". Let us go to the second paragraph on page 4147:

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .