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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3822 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (11.50): Mr Speaker, I have listened carefully to this debate, partly because I am not quite sure what is the concern. I had to ask Mr Stefaniak what he meant by the motion and it is apparently about a study of the number of male teachers, female teachers, old teachers, young teachers and things like that that should be able to be pulled out of statistics fairly easily. I do not know that it would be a very heavy inquiry. I do not know why the government needs to rush into it as the federal government may well be looking at it shortly.

On the other hand, I am not quite sure why a minister is unable to refer something to a committee for examination. That happens all the time. I think we all take referrals from ministers at some stage. As Mr Moore said, if there is reluctance on the part of this committee to look at this issue, it can be buried for 12 months without any trouble. In many ways, I am not sure what the fuss is all about.

Mr Kaine: When in doubt, vote no. Obviously, you are in doubt. I can tell by the way that you are talking that you are in doubt.

MR RUGENDYKE: I listened carefully to Mr Kaine's arguments, which had a lot of merit, and I will listen to the closing of the debate.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Minister Assisting the Attorney - General) (11:51), in reply: I agree with Mr Rugendyke: I do not know what all the fuss is about. The government has to look at everything. Of course it looks at this issue; it looks at every issue. But that has never stopped a committee from looking at things it wants to look at and it never will. Also, it is never going to stop a government seeking assistance from a committee on important issues, and I do not think anyone can deny that this is an important issue.

Yes, there is a lot being done nationally and maybe - I hope that it happens - a federal committee will take up this issue. I am not going to repeat what I said earlier - it is on the record - about the ACT having unique things that do need addressing. Mr Kaine said that it is something that the government should do and asked why the department cannot investigate it. Why can the department not investigate everything; why on earth should committees worry about that? Do you want just the department to investigate everything? Fair enough. Are you saying, "The department should be able to do that, so we will not comment on it as it must know what it is doing"? That is nonsense. Quite rightly, committees have often taken on self - referrals because they do not like the way the department is doing something. That might well be the case here, too.

Mr Speaker, I do not think that I can be more reasonable. I have been very flexible with the time. I know that the committees have a heavy work load. I would be quite happy if people wanted to extend the reporting date. If the committee takes it on and then says that it needs more time as it has more pressing matters, fine. I think that the composition of our teaching workforce is a very important issue for the ACT. Anything the committee can do in terms of what we should be doing in the future would be of help to us. Of course we are looking at that. We have done things that the committee has not liked, such as introduced the teacher renewal scheme, which a couple of members bagged but which is actually very popular.

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