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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1529 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

We have real concerns expressed in the community, justifiably so, about problems with drugs. We have real concerns expressed in the community, justifiably, about issues of crime in our society. We have concern - maybe not as much concern so loudly expressed - about issues of homelessness. Not enough attention is being given to what leads to these problems.

We see money being put into Quamby. That is great. Everyone knows that that needed to happen, we see money being put into corrective services. We know that that needed to happen. We see initiatives such as a safe injecting room. That needs to happen. These measures are about damage control, though. We need to be looking at the beginning of the problems. That is where I would want to see a government focus its attention much more. This Government does not do it. Over the last four years a number of Assembly committees, particularly the Social Policy Committee, have come up with recommendations particularly aimed at prevention and intervention.

Schools are obviously important. What did we see this year for education, with the introduction of the common youth allowance by the Federal Government? Instead of the Government acknowledging that and resourcing colleges to take it into account, it has reduced the number of teachers in the colleges. I think it is quite duplicitous of the Government to say that they are taking a caring approach. They are clearly ignoring a very important area.

The Government's proposed school drugs education program appears to be seriously underfunded. The $115,000 committed to this policy is supposed to train teachers, buy educational resources for Canberra schools and employ a drug support education officer. This is clearly inadequate funding for what could be worth while.

As I said, in the education portfolio the Government's teacher renewal program will see upwards of 13 experienced college teachers made redundant. The $600,000 being used to fund this is not an additional injection of funds into the college system but is for a poorly funded redundancy program. It would appear to be quite strange to be taking money and experienced teachers out of the colleges when, as I said, there are going to be extra pressures because of the Federal Government's appalling common youth allowance.

Across the board, the government schools sector has not done well out of the budget. The non-government sector has experienced CPI increases, as have government schools, as well as an additional $400,000 above these increases. If anything, as I said, we should see an increase in funding to government education to address serious social problems in schools, particularly when the community sector, in their pre-budget submissions, said that one of the greatest areas of need in the ACT was support for marginalised young people. That has come out of numerous reports in this Assembly.

We know that teachers are struggling with the social issues and problems in schools. We know what the solutions are. We know that we do not have enough people working in mental health for young people. We know that we need more counselling available for young people, and not necessarily in the schools. We know that we need to see greater coordination of services to support families. The Federal Government produced their Pathways to Prevention document, which paints a very clear picture, as all reports that

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