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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 3079 ..

MR STEFANIAK: I thank the member for the question. The Government does have a fairly significant maintenance program in schools, Mr Rugendyke, if you have a look at the budget. Quite clearly, the Government cannot fund every single thing that a school might want to undertake. Schools, of course, do have voluntary contributions. Schools, with enhanced school-based management, might use some of the money. I think we saw some recent reports in the Canberra Times which indicated that that has gone so well, in fact, that some of the moneys held have gone up by about $5m. At some time some schools might want to use some of that for certain tasks around the schools.

We do have ongoing maintenance schedules within our schools. We have rolling programs. We have priorities, too. For example, at the bigger end of the scale we have science and technology upgrades at a number of schools. That has been a very successful ongoing program. Certainly all schools can be part of the maintenance program. But there are certain things that individual schools might want to do now. One of the valid uses of voluntary contributions is maintenance, Mr Rugendyke.

MR RUGENDYKE: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, are you likely to review the situation to ensure that the Government meets its responsibility of adequately maintaining ageing schools rather than trying to put the responsibility onto parents?

MR STEFANIAK: I think the Government very much does that, Mr Rugendyke. If you look at the figures, you will see that we account for over 98 per cent of money spent on schools. Some of the moneys that go to schools are raised by voluntary contributions and some of the improvements through enhanced school-based management also assist schools, but the vast majority of money spent on schools is spent by governments, and obviously that is something that will continue.

Ms Carnell: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have some further information on a couple of questions from question time. I do not think it was the basis of Mr Quinlan's question, but Totalcare have sponsored the Cosmos for the last two seasons, so there is some government sponsorship or TOC sponsorship already.

MS CARNELL: A question was asked about weeds. If we sell ACTEW, there will be a real probability of having enough money for a significant one-off weed eradication program that could make a fundamental difference for the Territory.

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