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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 19 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

them has actually tackled the problem, that is, the Victorian Government, and they have not gone far enough. We have an opportunity with the 20 recommendations of this report to do something.

My colleagues have identified a number of areas of concern. In particular, I was concerned that the needs of children at Cranleigh School for suitable playground equipment had not been met. Another area of concern was the CALM unit at Koomarri. Access to toilet facilities is something that is taken as the norm at ordinary schools, but there was no direct access to toilet facilities from what is known as the CALM unit.

The other area of concern to me, Mr Speaker, involved the Woden School. There is a recommendation in this report that the Government be provided with regular reports on the implementation of strategies to prevent incidents of violent behaviour at Woden School. I think that is something on which the Government has taken appropriate action following the committee's attention being drawn to it.

In closing, I was horrified to learn that the ACT branch of the National Federation of Blind Citizens of Australia had expressed concern about a tendency to encourage children who could benefit from braille to rely on either audio cassette or computer speech as the primary means for accessing information and reading and writing. The federation claimed to the committee that such reliance can have disastrous outcomes for the development of the literacy skills of blind students, and I would agree. The Government's attention was drawn to this matter and the concerns of the federation were conveyed to the Department of Education and Community Services, which gave an assurance that the teaching of braille is current policy in the education system of the ACT.

A lot of effort and a lot of work have gone into this report. I am confident that the Government will take it on board. As I said, the problem is not confined to the ACT. It has arisen throughout the whole of Australia and various governments and people are coming to grips with it and trying to steer resources towards getting the best benefits not only for their community but also for the students who are disadvantaged compared with other students. Let us make the task for not only the students but also the teachers a little easier by bringing about some positive outcomes.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education) (11.53): Mr Speaker, I wish to make a few comments before I adjourn the debate on this report. Naturally, the Government will look very carefully at the recommendations. I note the relatively moderate tone of them and I note Ms Tucker's speech, which was generally positive in terms of pointing to some problems that the committee saw. We will look at them. I thank Mr Hird for his positive comments.

I will say a couple of things about Mr Berry's speech, to start with. I just saw it as a rather blatant attempt at petty political point-scoring. Might I say that the Government takes very seriously its responsibility for all students, especially its disabled students. In looking at the body of the report, I noted quite a number of comments in terms of what we do spend, and I do not think that you can get away from that.

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