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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 268 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

In short, I think the report is highly misleading for a number of important reasons. Firstly, it is outdated, and it contains many provisos and qualifications, which is a worry in itself. For a number of the smaller States and Territories - including South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT - the report has footnotes attached to it in a number of places. For example, the footnote on pages 191 and 192 states:

The Commonwealth usually provides very useful information which can assist governments to make policy decisions based on the data which is revealed. In this case I am extremely disappointed with the report. Normally the reports are of a fairly high standard.

Contrary to a very strange article I saw in the Canberra Times education section on Wednesday, this Government does not mind statistics which show it in not so good a light. We have a lot of statistics which show us in a good light. The most recent State of the Territory Report is a warts and all report. There are some things that this Territory is doing exceptionally well; there are others where there is area for improvement. In education, most of the reports that have come out show that we are doing very well. I do not mind if a report indicates that we are not doing well, if it is factually based and accurate. That would give us something to work on to improve.

This is not the first report there have been problems with. There were two others last year. The Canberra Times made a bit of an error with the June 1999 ABS figures for students in the ACT participating in vocational education and training. That report said we had only 3,541 students participating. I scratched my head on that one, because at the time we had over 18,000. Quite clearly, that was based on a very bad sampling error.

A report which came out recently gave us the benefit of the doubt. It said we had a 100 per cent increase in trainees and apprentices in a 12-month period. In fact, the number had gone up from 5,500 or so to 6,170. I did not shout it to the rooftops that we had had a 100 per cent increase. That report was wrong. Had I been asked anything on it, I would have quite happily pointed out that the increase had probably been about only 30 to 35 per cent. There were errors there. They do occur.

I get back to the report you asked about, Mr Hird. It is almost useless to the smaller States and Territories as a tool for policy development. It has taken two years to see the light of day. Because of the provisos, the small sample size and the acknowledged statistical unreliability, it is not worth while at all. The sample covered two government schools from a total of 96 and one out of 42 non-government primary schools. It looked at the computer skills of 171 students out of a total of over 60,000 students in both systems. In other words, 0.28 of our students were surveyed. Quite clearly, that is a real problem.

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