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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (18 April) . . Page.. 1061 ..

MS McRAE (11.57): I think it is very important that we support this motion, and I am going to spell out exactly why. The debate is not, as Mrs Carnell tried constantly to interject through Ms Follett's speech, about the allocation of funding to schools; it is not about the total quantum of allocation of funding to schools. In the Government's response to the PAC report they bleated on at great length about what heroes they were. Of course, nobody believes them; but still they carried on about the quantum of the amount of money given to schools. It is not the issue.

It is not good enough for the Government to say, "But why did you not do it when you had power over the schools?". The issue is this: This is the first major review of the base allocation of funding to schools that has been done in the history of this Assembly. No-one had ever looked at the differences in incomes that have accrued to each of the schools in our Territory; there had never been the level of detail before the Assembly or before a Minister in such clarity. Ministers were well aware of the differences; individuals were well aware of the differences; political parties were well aware of the differences. In fact, we all campaigned on it. It was no accident that the Labor Party campaigned on abolishing voluntary parent contributions, because we were well aware of the discrepancies between the incomes of schools; we were not worried about the fact that some parents did or did not want to pay. The base issue was that at that point we were aware of the enormous differences and, therefore, injustices across the system.

Awareness is one thing. Having the facts in front of you is completely different. To turn your back on clear evidence is, as has been said repeatedly this morning, completely contemptuous. There is no walking away from the ACT Council of P and C Associations survey of schools, which showed quite categorically that the capacity of schools to raise money varies, in schools of similar enrolment, from $1 per child to $1,000 per child. That was in the submission that was put before the committee. A government cannot walk away from that fact.

Mr De Domenico: No; from that opinion. It is not a fact; it is an opinion.

MS McRAE: It was a fact from a survey put in front of a committee which then investigated the facts; it was not an opinion. Similarly, the numbers put forward by the department showed those discrepancies. We were no longer dealing in the realms of scraps of information that we could glean from our friends and contacts in schools; we were dealing with fact. That is why the Government's response is so contemptuous.

Let me look at the issues which were raised by the PAC and which, again, have nothing to do with the actual total allocation of money to schools, which is why the Government cannot say, "We are not in a position to offer any more money". Nobody asked them to offer any more money. These are the questions that the PAC asked to be looked at with great seriousness. The first was the equity question. After reading the submissions and after reading the report, one is given clear information that shows, beyond debate, that the educational experiences of our children in government schools vary considerably according to where those schools are, who is on the P and C and how many parents are able to contribute.

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