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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1239 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

That did not work, did it? There was a complete absence of leadership, a complete lack of understanding of how the community works and what the community's needs are. Now everybody has to go to the TAFE and pay a quite considerable sum. As we have seen over the years, the figures have declined dramatically and we have cut off a very important channel of re-education to the people who most need it.

We have seen the closure of one of our poorest high schools, in one of the most disadvantaged areas of my electorate. The suburb is furthest away from any services and is fast declining as a pleasant place in which to live. The Government went in, gung ho, saying, "Yes, a good idea; close Charnwood High; the previous Government did nothing about it". We heard all the rhetoric, but there was no consideration of the long-term impact of that on the morale of the community, on the wellbeing of the people who lived in that area. To top it all off, this year the Urban Services Minister has helped out by rearranging all the buses. People who actually now have to go to Ginninderra High cannot get there anymore on the buses that they previously used. There is a complete absence of leadership, a complete absence of concern for the people who are most disadvantaged and have the most difficulty in surviving in our community. Now, hey presto, Copland College is under stress. Surprise, surprise! What is the Government doing? Absolutely nothing. The market rules, okay! We are worried about jobs and where our next $100m windfall may come from, but we are not worried about the people who live, work and have to survive in Canberra.

The Minister has done nothing. It took a week of press coverage for him even to concede that there was a problem with the disadvantaged schools. I do not really care about that in the end, because it is only icing on the cake. It shows an absence of basic leadership to begin with, because we should not be topping up disadvantaged schools. The Minister should have taken much more care that schools were funded properly in the first place, as was indicated in the PAC report. What does this Government stand for? It stands for letting the poor fade away, disappear, not have any services, not have any support, not be taken care of.

School-based management is another example, if we stay with the education area. When Mr Stefaniak was asked to deal with the issue he said, "No; there is no problem; it is okay; they will all be okay". That is not what we are hearing from small schools; that is not what we are hearing from the most disadvantaged areas. What is this Government doing? Absolutely nothing. It is finding other ways, I should say, to grab $100m from here and to grab $100m from there, but no ways of dealing with the immediate problems that are here and now. This budget paper shows up the absolute lack of direction, vision or concern for the Canberra community.

In the education area, the stress that has been put on families is growing. The first venture into it all came from the push into sport, with absolutely no regard for the extra equipment that was needed, the extra clothing that was needed, the extra financial burden that it was putting on the disadvantaged. Have we seen anything to counter that? Have we seen any programs in place to say, "We do care about you; we are an inclusive community; we are going to support you."? No. For years, the pressure has been on to extend the counselling and support that are offered to students in stress within schools, to offer teachers further avenues of support when they encounter these students in stress.

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