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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 309 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Territory back on the rails as best we can, the Government has increased funding for education. It is a mathematical fact, Mr Speaker. There is $206,624,000 for education in this budget. Under the three-year budget, that will go up to $211,907,000 in 1996-97 and $218,133,000 in 1997-98.

I think that is the only area where there is an increase over the three-year term of this budget. As the Chief Minister says, that is despite the Grants Commission. If we were economic rationalists, there would be a hell of a lot less money in education. As she has said, we rejected that approach because we realised how terribly important an investment for the future education is. Whichever way you want to play with the figures - you might think there should be $4.7m more or $3.8m more or whatever - the simple mathematical fact is that this Government this year has spent more money on education than any other government has since self-government in this Territory. That is a fact. Next year it will spend more again, and the year after that it will spend more again. It is quite simple.

Mr Speaker, some amazingly contradictory things were said by Ms McRae for the Opposition. She was talking about free buses. Yes, we would love to introduce those, but there were nine people in this Assembly who did not want them - the ALP, the Greens and Mr Moore. That one really has a bit of a problem before it gets started.

An incident having occurred in the gallery -

MR SPEAKER: Order! If that happens again, I will suspend the sitting.

MR STEFANIAK: I turn now to some other points Ms McRae mentioned. She blithely brushed over the fact that her Government wanted to cut some 80 teaching positions. Under this Government, despite two Auditor-General's reports, I think some 27 positions in secondary colleges did go. That was about only 40 per cent of what two of the Auditor-General's reports suggested should go. The recent offer made to the Australian Education Union does not involve the loss of one teaching position. That point really needs to be driven home. In fact, it is a very good package involving 4.3 per cent - - -

An incident having occurred in the gallery -

MR SPEAKER: The sitting is suspended until the ringing of the bells.

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, Ms McRae mentioned a number of other things such as school-based management. I know that it might be hard for Ms McRae to appreciate, but this Government, unlike the previous one, does listen to consultation. It is an issue which I think is crucial to schools. It has immense potential, and it is something that school communities need to work through. Accordingly, I was more than happy to accede to quite reasonable requests by a number of school communities to extend the consultation time. Work is well under way on this vital initiative. It is an excellent initiative which I think will really take our schools into the twenty-first century, because there is so much potential in it - - -

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