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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (28 October) . . Page.. 2336 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

of the Downer community and anybody else around the area who wants to use their preschool that this is a preschool the community is prepared to protect. I rather suspect the viability of Downer Preschool will not come into question in the foreseeable future. All of a sudden parents now know that they have a parents association that will look after the future of the preschool, and its viability, I suspect, will not be in question.

Minister, I wish you had mentioned in your response to my introduction of this motion how many preschools have come back from suspension. I rather think that there are not too many, or possibly none; otherwise, you would have tried to hang your hat on them. I do not know of any. I suspect that had you as Minister known of any that had come back from the dead you would have been quick to tell us.

This motion has earned the support of the majority of this Assembly because it is a just motion based on the desires of the community around an important feature of their social landscape. I trust that the Downer Preschool parents association, along with those who follow them, will continue to defend their preschool. I hope that this sends a message to the Government that if it wants to muck around with the preschool system or the education system it had better start talking with the community first. That has been the noticeable gap in the Government's behaviour in relation to this. Its arrogance after it made the decision was something that we have grown to expect. Whilst you protest all the time about how much consultation you are doing, it is never on the key issues that affect the community.

I will give a few examples of your arrogance when it comes to consultation. How many people did you consult on the insurance levy? How many people did you consult on the bus fare changes? The list goes on. How many people did you discuss the motor vehicle registration increase with? How many people did you consult on ACTEW? If you want to boast about consultation, you have to be able to boast about consultation on issues that are important to the community.

The Downer Preschool debacle will be a bit of a hallmark of your behaviour on consultation. It is a clear example of where you could have got yourself out of a lot of trouble if you had just gone along with the parents association or the Canberra preschool association and said, "These are the problems we are having with Downer Preschool from our perspective". They could have informed you, "You need worry no more, because we have the numbers". You could have then said, "Do not worry anymore. Your preschool will live on".

One other thing disturbed me about your speech, Minister. You said that the department were looking after the parents' interests. You were responding to my claim about keeping information from the parents association, who were organising a protest about the closure of their preschool. Minister, the department looking after the parents' interests by shepherding their children to other preschools is not quite the same as giving information to the parents association so that they can reclaim Downer Preschool. There is a distinct difference. By keeping information from the parents association at Downer Preschool about the possible enrolling parents, of course what you were trying to do was cramp their style in organising a protest against your actions. That is not the way to behave either. All that did was anger the parents.

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