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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2651 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

hopefully, 150 minutes each week will be spent on physical education and sport from Year 3 right through to Year 10, and 30 minutes will be spent on health education. As Mr Wood may be aware - if he talked to his colleague Ms McRae, he should be - there was extensive consultation in terms of - - -

Mr Humphries: Wrong faction.

MR STEFANIAK: That is a very good point, Mr Humphries. That is probably the reason. There was extensive consultation over a number of months, including two round-table conferences which arrived at that time. No-one had a particular problem with that time at the last round-table conference - except perhaps two of the 30 participants, who would have probably liked it to be a little bit less. It seemed to be a very good figure arrived at by consensus among the many stakeholders involved after extensive consultation, as Ms McRae no doubt will tell you. That is certainly a reasonable optimum time that was acceptable to most people, Mr Wood. Everyone has taken into account such things as other curriculum areas. Indeed, it was the P and C that at one stage stated to me that they thought 150 minutes would be fairly reasonable. When one looks at this particular area as being one of the eight key learning areas and when one looks at how long children and students stay at school and learn over a week, it is a very reasonable period of time, as virtually all the participants would agree. That is why it seemed to be so well accepted.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Mr Stefaniak's responses - they were not answers - are interesting. First of all he said, "Who knows?". Then he said, "It is Roberta McRae who knows". Certainly, the Minister does not appear to know. I ask my question again. Will the Minister indicate the advice that he has received about the impact on other programs of any changes that are occurring?

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Wood - and you should know this - there were vast differences in how long schools were spending. Some were doing as little as 45 minutes; others were doing up to 265 minutes. In some schools there will be little, if any, change. In other schools there will be some change.

MS TUCKER: My question is addressed to the Minister for Planning, Mr Humphries. Can the Minister guarantee that this Government will not permit further expansion of any of the town centres before completion of the retail strategy, which is drawing upon the findings of the social impact study of local centres and the inquiry into retail trading hours?

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