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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (18 April) . . Page.. 1048 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

That the Department of Education and Training establish a mechanism for ensuring schools have adequate opportunity to be fully informed with regard to, and negotiate with the department on, overall school budgetary needs and problems.

In reading the response, I might be able to interpret that that recommendation is actually agreed; that you already have a mechanism in place. That is good enough; you do not need to do anything else. Perhaps one could interpret that that one has been agreed.

Mr Stefaniak: How about the third paragraph?

MR MOORE: In fact, I refer specifically to the third paragraph. You have basically agreed with it. The department has agreed to review and improve those arrangements. On that, one of the most minor things in the report, the Government has agreed to review its processes. I think you deserve credit where it is due. For that little bit, credit is due. Look at the rest, though - the real issues, the fundamental issues. Recommendation 3 states:

That, if voluntary contributions are to remain part of the school funding base, the Government:

(a) make an unequivocal statement in support of the voluntary nature of such contributions; and

(b) that it develop measures to assist those parents who do not have the capacity to make contributions.

Right from the word go, the response states that voluntary contributions are not part of the school funding base. It then puts the arguments as to why they are not going to be. Since you want to draw attention to paragraph numbers, Mr Stefaniak, I point out that the second paragraph states:

The Government is not committed to fund any shortfall in discretionary funding because of a fall off in voluntary contributions.

That is a very different sort of attitude to that expressed by the Liberal Party during the election campaign. This is why you should be embarrassed. Recommendation 4 states:

That the Department of Education and Training, in full consultation, develop a policy of consistency between schools in identifying the bases upon which voluntary contributions are sought.

In effect, the Government responds, "Of course not, because we think schools should be able to do their own thing, and therefore we are not going to try to get consistency. Therefore, we are going to accept that some schools are going to be marginalised". The response to recommendation 5 starts off, "The Government agrees". There is something positive in there after all. So it goes on. The Government supports a couple of other recommendations in principle. But look at recommendation 8. It states:

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