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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 380 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

I have been an opponent of school-based management since my days on the Erindale College board when Mr Wood was the Minister for Education. I can remember lobbying him against its introduction. In fact, the reason the Labor Party did not introduce it was that the proposal had hairs on it. In the states where it was introduced successfully, it was introduced over a five-year period, with the infrastructure of the schools being raised to a given standard. School-based management was rushed through this town in 12 months. There was no bringing of the infrastructure up to standard. I think that the record needs to be cleared up on that.

Mr Speaker, I have some problems with the consultation process which is going on at the moment. I received a fax from one of the parents involved in the process. The minister says that he is going to go down there and meet with people, but the minister is only going to meet the board chair, the deputy chair and the principal. Where is the representation from the parents and citizens association? For heaven's sake, it was the parents who took their kids down there. The minister ought to have somebody from the parents and citizens association who is not wearing another hat on the board. It does not matter whom it is-pick whichever one you like-but he should have one of the parents who are upset about it in on the discussions. The one thing I will say about this minister, Mr Speaker, is that he is an honest man and he will try to do his best. I am saddened to see that he is missing the opportunity to show the people out there in the community how genuine he is about trying to find a solution.

Mr Speaker, the timeframe is something I am critical about as well. The department has been monitoring the temperatures all summer. One summer does not a cool classroom make. Why was the department monitoring the areas? It was because the department knew that it was its responsibility to fix it, not because it was the school's responsibility. The parents had put the thermometers in there before the department started to monitor the situation. The parents know how hot it gets in there and the department knows how hot it gets in there. You do not need all summer to solve such a problem. In fact, by the time the monitoring is finished, it will be too late as we will be into the winter months.

Mr Speaker, we have had talk about the school being asked to use school-based management funds. If this school used these funds on its eight classrooms at a rate of $4,000 each, it would cost more than $30,000 to solve the problem. That would mean that there would be less funds for student management, IT, maintenance, educational material, security, electricity and water, and books and paper. School-based management does not allow a school the discretion of spending $30,000 on something like that. Blind Freddy would know that discretion stretches the point at $5,000. It is always a difficult process for any school to find $5,000, let alone $30,000; it is just not on. Gordon Primary School is a large school and it has eight demountable classrooms. I presume that there are two 3Ts and a 2T.

Mr Stefaniak: Two, two, two, two.

MR HARGREAVES: There are four sets of 2Ts, are there? I will not argue with that. I have not been there to see it. I have been to Conder to look at it and the problem is identical.

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