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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3256 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I am uneasy in the sense that, as a committee, we sometimes put out discussion papers, and if somebody came back to the committee I was chairing and said, "You put out a discussion paper, but you left something out. Why do you not add a new chapter?", then as chair of that committee I would say, "I am very interested in your opinion. Tell us where we are inadequate". If we are inadequate and we are given an outline of what the inadequacy is, as Ms McRae has appropriately identified, we may rewrite the thing or we may determine to put out a second version of the discussion paper.

I am interested in how Ms McRae responds to that. She has certainly raised the issue, and I am sure that the Minister and his department will take into account the fact that there is this gap that does need to be filled; but I would expect, when it is so clearly identified, that Ms McRae would have raised the important issues that she now deals with. She has got it on the record. She will only have to take it out of Hansard and hand it over to the Minister. I am really dubious about saying to somebody that their discussion paper needs to have another chapter added, rather than accepting it as a discussion paper and saying, "It has a gaping hole in it. When you do your final, make sure you include this", or "This is the gaping hole. Show us what you are thinking before you do the final". I would assume that that would go out to key personnel or to people who had responded. So, whilst I agree with the sentiment put in the motion, I am waiting to hear Ms McRae because I am dubious about supporting her, on that particular ground.

MS McRAE (5.05), in reply: I suppose I now have to put forward my own amendment. As far as I am concerned, a chapter can be a page, 10 pages, another rewrite of this, or even a letter; I really do not care. But I do not think you can just take a commonsense attitude to the issue of parents. I am looking at it from the perspective of a child who is learning to read, not from the perspective of an adult reading this paper. If you are a six-year-old and fronting at the school and the teacher says, "Take that home to mummy and daddy", there is instantly a step back and a response of, "I do not have a mummy and daddy. I have a foster parent. I have a carer. I have a guardian". You are already building up an assumption.

All educators know that kids are most adept at hiding their differences. The whole process of learning is a process of socialisation, of learning how to belong and how to fit in. If the message you are getting from the school is that you are different and you do not belong, the inevitable reaction is that you try to hide that. That is why - shock, horror! - so often kids get up to Year 5 or Year 6 and suddenly their illiteracy is discovered. Teachers or anybody who has had anything to do with children knows that those children can slip through for an awfully long time and nobody detects their lack of literacy skills. One of the things that contribute to that is children retreating from a stereotype of how they should live. That is why the word "family" is so critical. It might be trivial and it might be understood by those in the know, but from the perspective of the children we are talking about it is of the utmost importance. If we let it slip through here, it means that we let it slip through everywhere and we build this model that to become literate you need this set of circumstances.

If we look at the chapter headed "Involvement of Parents and Community", it is there that I would seek the modifications, apart from the general theme. That chapter does not have anything that says what the school does when these circumstances are not met.

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