Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4131 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

continuously funded. You are not seriously telling me that, every time a major new capital injection is needed for a major item, this is how it is going to be dealt with, are you? I was most unimpressed, and I think it sets an extraordinarily bad precedent for the management of education to think that the management of property is going to be what yields the recurrent funds.

Schools belong to the community. I will not accept this nonsense from Mrs Carnell that, all of a sudden, the schools belong only to the Education Department. They belong to the community. As such, I do not see how you can say that, because the Education Department has these schools and one day may have some surplus schools, those funds should stay within education. It is outrageous. They are our community assets. It may well be, as it turns out, that one year you sell a school and buy a new piece of equipment for the hospital; or it may be that you fix the roads with it, that you have different priorities. But I find it absolutely outrageous, firstly, that, all of a sudden, by dint of its being labelled the Education Department's property, all that money stays there when they are basic community assets which we all paid for; and, secondly, that the linking of the sale of a specific asset should be the criterion for the development of a literacy program. Worst of all, $1m is being set aside for this literacy program, yet we find in the budget papers that $10.8m was the value that was attributed to Charnwood High. So we are not even getting a fair deal with that logic. It just does not follow. It deserves a great deal more scrutiny and a great deal more debate, and I think it sends a very bad signal about how new and important Government initiatives that are lauded and trumpeted as great new breakthroughs for education come only because the property at Charnwood High is disposed of. It deserves far more scrutiny.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (3.04 am): Firstly, if you pass this budget tonight, which you will do, that $1.2m is there. It is there now, and you might note that nothing has happened with the Charnwood High School site yet. So $1.2m is there. If the Charnwood High School site is sold, $1.2m of that will go to pay for that fund, and really, what is wrong with that? What on earth is wrong with that, Ms McRae? It is a perfectly good use of money. This is a bit like the sports budget and your speech on that. You are clutching at straws.

This budget has been very well regarded by the education community. In very difficult times, not only have we increased it by the CPI figure from last year but there are also additional funds there: $1.41m funding for other emerging costs; the literacy fund of $1.2m, albeit that the interest on that will be used; and most specifically, Ms McRae, $452,000 this financial year for the student record keeping system, a system that has long been in need of replacement because it is so crucial. That is a system that looks after all the marks and scores for our Year 12 students, not only government but also non-government. So there are some excellent initiatives there. Additional funding is also provided in the training and children, youth and family services budgets - a rollover of Commonwealth funding of $2.161m and increased territorial funding of $1.48m.

It is a good budget for education, and I think it has been regarded as such. Indeed, I think that was probably indicated during the Estimates Committee hearing, in that the only thing you really had any problem with, the only thing you seemed to hang your hat on, was preschools. In terms of preschools and the way in which numbers

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .