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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2354 ..

assistants, from two units which provide services for kids with autism. One of the units was at Weetangera and I think the other one was at Yarralumla.

How can a government claim that it is building social capital when it does those sorts of things? Of course, when the government had the pressure put on them by the community, they pretty soon worked out that they were in for a political storm and went to water on the subject, and rightfully so. But it was this government that harboured the idea in the first place to cut these units back by a staff member in each circumstance. That would have had a serious impact on the kids in the units who live with autism. I know from my experience that one of the things that are most important for students with autism is stability. Here we have a government that was going to remove a couple of staff members. Caught out, they folded and agreed to leave the staff. But it is the intent that is worth noting here. It is the intent which gives you an idea of how this government operates on education.

MR CORBELL (11:33): If ever we were to make a blunders and bloopers tape of budget 2000-2001, the effort by the Minister for Education in relation to school ovals would rank right up there as one of the leading contenders.

We have seen an extraordinary sequence of events over the past couple of weeks. It was revealed in the estimates committee process that the government was contemplating the sale of Canberra's surplus sports grounds for commercial or residential redevelopment. In my relatively short time in this place I have never seen such a blunder and it can only be described as extraordinary. I think it is important to put on the record in this place exactly what occurred.

This matter first came about during the estimates committee process. When examining the department of education's ownership agreement we found under the surplus assets section the following statement relating to the sale of sports grounds:

that is, the Bureau of Sport-

I thought, when I saw this, "Oh, this is a bit odd, this is a bit unusual. I will ask the minister about it." The minister's immediate response in estimates was to attempt to explain away redevelopment as "watering and mowing the ovals". He said to me that what they meant by redevelopment was watering them and mowing them and using them for other sports purposes. This is a new definition of commercial and residential development that I have not heard before. Perhaps the minister should let his colleague the minister for planning know about this innovative new land use.

But it does not stop there. Struggling, the minister's spokesperson explained that of course they would look at options for the redevelopment of these ovals, that any sensible government would do so because they are surplus assets, and that he would not rule it out. The storm continued. Community opposition continued to flow in. We then had the

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