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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 720 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

At that meeting, I met one young woman who had gone through the girls' off-line program. That program has not been cut; nevertheless, it is an example of what is being lost for boys. Mr Speaker, this young woman said to me that when she went to the off-line program her family was in trouble. They were facing a divorce in the family. It was not a pleasant situation for her. She was in Year 7 at the time. Mr Speaker, through the off-line program for girls at Stromlo High School she was able to receive peer support and mentoring from a dedicated teacher which enabled her to restore her self-confidence and enabled her to go through some courses in independent living skills which she found so important to being able to cope on her own. She is now living with her sister and is also a peer support person for a younger person in the school.

Mr Speaker, she said to me that if it had not been for the off-line program at Stromlo High School, she would not be in college. That says volumes about the value of these programs. It says volumes about the dedication of the teachers who run these programs. It is devastating news to so many families and young people at Stromlo High School that these programs are being wound back, all because of the refusal of Bill Stefaniak as the Minister responsible for education to provide the additional support to Stromlo High School which could keep that program going in its current form. The old motto applies, Mr Speaker: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The problem is that this Government has walked away from that program.

I met another young person and his father at my meeting on Friday. The young man is 14. He was in the off-line program for boys. He received no advice that the program was going to be cancelled. No consultation occurred with him or with his father. His father was left to fend for himself in trying to find an alternative for his young son. Eventually, he was successful in getting a placement for his young son with the Galilee program, an excellent program run on the Kambah Pool Road. But he got no help from the department. He got no help from the school. He got no help from the facilities that Mr Stefaniak said in question time today were available as alternatives and in place. Mr Speaker, that is just a dismal situation. A 14-year-old boy, a young man, was left to fend for himself and his father, a sole parent, was left to fend for himself in finding an alternative place. The alternative for that family was that that young man would be out of the school system entirely. That is a devastating critique of what is occurring at Stromlo High School at this very moment.

The Minister can stand up in this place and put forward all the justifications he likes about why it has happened and he can put forward all the justifications he likes about why there are alternatives. But the fact is that this program worked. I have gone round and met with many of the young people and their parents and, overwhelmingly, their commitment to this program is passionate. It is passionate because they know that they or their children would not be in the position they were in today if they had not been able to access it.

Bill Stefaniak should have a heart, quite frankly, and extend to Stromlo High School an offer to provide the small amount of funding needed to provide for that program to continue in its current form for an ongoing period. Mr Speaker, that is a reasonable thing to do. Stromlo High School is the only public high school in the Weston Creek area. It has been a school, as with any other high school, which has had its fair share of troubled young people. Unlike most other high schools in the ACT - indeed, unlike any other high

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