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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 2826 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Another interesting thing that I find in the Minister's statement is this sentence:

Primary schools will receive an additional $400,000 to meet the learning needs of students through targeted early intervention programs.

This sounds like new money but we know it is not. It is money that will have to come out of the education budget. It will have to be found somewhere else. The $400,000 for early intervention programs comes from within the education budget and creates a strain somewhere else.

Nobody would oppose directing funding to these sorts of needs, but when it comes out of, and creates other pressures within, the budget the sum of the outcomes might not be as good as the impression the dollar figure might give. We all now know that the Government broke its promise about maintaining funding within the education system and that there will be pressures within education as a result of that. I am sure that we will discover those pressures as time passes. They will visit themselves upon the Government. You cannot cut those sorts of funds from the education budget without affecting some aspect of it.

I suppose this goes back to the Estimates Committee process. All sorts of attempts will be made to put a gloss on it, and it will be up to those who are involved in the next Estimates Committee process to use their skill, care and attention to get to the bottom of it. I expect Mr Stefaniak still to be the Education Minister. He will shriek at them for being too tough and he will say, "Why do you not come up with some new ideas of your own?". At the end of the day those education cuts do impact on - - -

Mr Stefaniak: Are you going to talk about literacy?

MR BERRY: No, we are talking about the cuts to education. Will they impact on education? They do impact on education.

Mr Stefaniak: It is not numeracy; that is for sure.

MR BERRY: Education is about literacy and numeracy, Bill. I am surprised that Charnwood and the other matter are mentioned in the Minister's speech. If I were him, I would stay quiet about those, though I suppose the cat is out of the bag and there is not much he can do about it now.

It is absolutely necessary for us to stay focused on quality education for upcoming generations. Without a proper education, our children, their children and so on will never be able to create the sort of society that we hope for them. It is also extremely important that we do not let ideology get in the way of this issue. I mentioned earlier my concerns about the three Rs and the ideology surrounding that old saying which was peddled around by conservatives in the past. I trust that the language in this statement results in

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