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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1940 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

because there was a Labor government dealing with them at that stage. But I just do not believe it. I do not accept that it is Mr Stefaniak who is solely responsible for the continuation of this dispute. I would say to Mr Berry and the others who put this motion forward that, if the union is really serious about settling the dispute, it will use the accepted mechanism for doing so, which is arbitration or conciliation in the Industrial Relations Commission. That is the most acceptable way of resolving this matter.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think most of us know that this is an acceptable way of dealing with this matter; but, obviously, it is not good enough for the Australian Education Union. It is not good enough either for the people in this place who have already decided to do Mr Stefaniak over on this motion. I am sure that he is going to be very upset about it! I am sure that he is going to be really cut up about having to face another motion of effective censure on this place! It does not really have much effect, I have to say; but we take this as it comes. We will continue our course of action. We will continue to try to talk to the union. But we are not going to drop the bundle on this matter. We cannot offer more than we have reasonably given to other unions in this matter, and we will stick to our guns in that respect.

MS TUCKER (4.54): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, Mr Stefaniak expressed concern that students are the real losers as a result of this ban. I noticed other members in the Liberal Party shaking their heads with deep sympathy as well. I think that what we need to do in this discussion is recognise the basic facts of a budget decision made by the Liberal Government, which is to come out in the black at the end of three years - a prediction that is based on economic growth, which seems less and less likely to occur. Therefore, the only means by which this Government will end up in the black will be by making further cuts to services.

We already have one of the least well funded education systems of all OECD countries. As Australians, we do not value the importance of education. We are also one of the lowest taxed of the OECD countries; but neither Labor nor Liberal will talk about that issue. We have highly paid consultants, engaged by Liberal governments, coming out and saying about various essential social services, "We have to ration this service because there is not enough money". Apparently, we are all supposed to accept that that will not change. We do not dare speak about taxes. What we dare to speak about is how we will ration our services. So, now we are talking about rationing education. The pity of it is that a rationed education service will obviously result in social impacts. We see Liberal governments coming out with crisis management policies, saying "Let us get more move-on powers for the police. Let us shut the drinking outlets. Let us put cameras in Civic. We have a social problem". When they are asked to take long-term strategies and look at the reasons for this, they say, "Oh, no; it costs too much money".

We have just had a whole inquiry in this place by the Standing Committee on Social Policy, looking at education. We know that what Mr Moore said is right. We know that the kids at the bottom end of the class are not going to be looked after. They are not being looked after now. We have a shrinking resource. We are not only shrinking the wages of the teachers but also shrinking the resources of the schools.

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