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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1315 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

It was against this background that the then CEO of the department decided that a review of the school's operation should be undertaken. The review panel comprised the Executive Director (Northern Division), a senior officer from the school performance review and development section and an executive officer of the department. The review independently concluded that a move to another campus was essential to the continuation of an alternative education model and that Years 11 and 12 should be phased out. I will come back to that in a minute, Mr Speaker.

Nevertheless, the review did not settle the question by itself. I ultimately decided to agree to the movement of the school. Might I say that that was after considerable consultation with large numbers of members of the SWOW community at several Meet the Minister meetings - one in August, I think, and one in September - a number of meetings with groups of people from SWOW, individual members of SWOW and some individual parents of SWOW. Whilst agreeing to the movement of the school, I did not agree to the discontinuation of Years 11 and 12. I also did not agree to SWOW moving at the start of term 4. Ultimately, as can be seen from the Government's response to Ms Tucker's standing committee report, we respected the SWOW community's wishes that the new program at Dickson not be called "SWOW". I think those things all indicate a considerable amount of notice being taken of a lot of consultation.

As the final decision-maker, I was prepared to listen to any option which people associated with the school wanted to advance, if it would deal with the continuing problems I have outlined. In fact, as I have indicated, on occasions right up until the transfer of the school, I met with students, staff, parents, the union and various members of this Assembly. Whilst there were a number of matters put to me on which I caused changes to be made to the department's review report, no practical alternative was advanced which left me confident that it could overcome the very powerful and entrenched influence exerted by some students, ex-students and parents and rectify the problems that had been identified and had developed over some years at SWOW.

So, Mr Speaker, I certainly was not prepared, and I do not think the Government was, to take chances and risk any further failures. I think that another 12 months without rectifying the problem would have meant that, perhaps for a number of students, their high school education would not be appropriate, would be substandard, and would not be what they deserve and are entitled to as students in our system. For example, whilst I accept that Mr Wood's decision to introduce a level 2 teacher was made with the best of intentions, its failure did delay improvement by a further 12 months. Something did need to be done, and I think it needed to be done quickly. Therefore, Mr Speaker, I maintain my decision, and so does the Government. I was not the only one who thought that the relocation to Dickson College was right. Very early in first term this year, the Government opened an alternative education program at Dickson College and, within weeks, more students were enrolled in the Dickson College program than were enrolled at SWOW Braddon. Many had transferred from SWOW to the Dickson College program.

While a minority at SWOW were staging media stunts early this year, the majority of parents and students had endorsed my decision by voting with their feet. There are now, I am told, 44 students enrolled in the alternative program at Dickson College, and they are attending. This is a larger number of people attending school than attended at

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