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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3298 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I warn you.

MR SMYTH: Mr Wood might like to quote from an article of 21 November, but I think that he should quote from one of 14 November and apologise because, according to his Labor colleague, "the Labor Party says it has learnt from its past mistakes in government and would do things better" in regard to planning. What of Mr Wood's mistakes? Perhaps he would like to apologise to the people of the ACT for what Labor got wrong.

MR WOOD: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I seek your ruling. No attempt was made to answer the question to explain the discrepancy between the minister's documents and the minister's words, so I will give him the opportunity in the supplementary question to go back and explain that discrepancy and, further, to explain other words that were included in the study; for example, "to assist the Territory's land development and release programming", "to identify current marketable situation of this unleased Territory land", and "to identify unusable sites and the sites with development constraints". These simply do not accord with your words in that newspaper in front of you.

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, as a responsible land manager, the government needs to look at all the unleased land. In fact, when Mr Corbell was briefed by the public servants he told them that such audits had been done in other states and they were a good idea. Take it in context: you walk away from your mistakes, but you do not acknowledge what the government is doing in the process outlined in the land release program. Mr Corbell has now said that Mr Wood got it wrong as planning minister. Perhaps Mr Corbell or Mr Wood will outline what Labor got wrong and how they are going to rectify it if they should ever get into government again.

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the Minister for Education and relates to funding for special education. Minister, I am aware of the increases in funding in recent years that the government has provided to special education and I both understand and support the basis upon which funding is allocated to students with disabilities in government schools. It seems quite sensible that resources are allocated to students on a needs basis, where each student is provided the services and support required to advance their education.

However, I also understand that students with disabilities in non-government schools are not given the same commitment by the government. Instead, they are funded to a lesser degree for categories of disability and end up competing with each other for meagre resources. Some students receive adequate funding, some receive partial funding and some miss out altogether. Why is it that a student with a disability in a government school is provided with funding to meet their needs but, should they transfer to a non-government school, that funding is drastically reduced? Why does the funding not follow the child?

MR STEFANIAK: I thank the member for the question. Indeed, it is quite a good question. It goes to the very heart of the differences between the government's responsibility for government schools and the government's responsibility for non-government schools.

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