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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1444 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Even the Canberra Times editorial conceded "there was a certain amount" of vote-buying in the budget. From the Canberra Times, that is criticism indeed. And Geoff Pryor got it right on the mark in his editorial page cartoon. It is simply ludicrous for the Chief Minister to deny the fact. The scattergun approach to funding-as the Times said in its page 1 headline "Something for everyone"-is evidence enough of the essential nature of this election year budget. But the very initiative that raises the point is the most telling example.

Mr Speaker, with all-zone school bus tickets costing $99 a term, the decision to introduce free travel will be welcomed by parents. But the community is right to question the merit of the initiative. There is no question that the government needs to put more into education. The Productivity Commission has shown that quite clearly. Where once the ACT led the nation in what it put into education, it now lags.

Over the last decade, our expenditure on education grew less than anywhere else in Australia. As the Productivity Commission shows, between 1994-95 and 1998-99 expenditure growth on education in the ACT was 1.3 per cent a year. The Australian average was 4.3 per cent a year.

The states are catching up. Indeed, some, if not most, have passed us. We have lost our pre-eminent position. As a community, we are entitled to ask: if things are as good as the Liberals keep telling us they are, why has this happened? Why did they abandon our pre-eminent position in education? That point has been put long and hard by all the interest groups-the teachers, the various parents and community groups, and parents, whether drawn from the public or private systems. The government has failed to live up to its 1995 commitment to maintain education funding in real terms. It has failed to keep pace, and in doing so has failed parents and students and the Canberra community.

Labor has long seen the government's failures, and we have listened with interest to the arguments in favour of increased educational resources. The future of the ACT, particularly in the further development of important high-tech industry support, relies on a quality output from the education sector. We have an advantage in our highly qualified work force. We will maintain it only if we maintain a high-quality education system. Indeed, it is our major and enduring advantage relative to the other states and territories in Australia.

Labor understands that education is more than bricks and mortar. Learning is the very fabric of what makes up our community. Education is the very basis of modern society and of economic growth. As I announced recently, Labor's commitment is to reinstate education quality and spending as our main focus. We will not waste our children's futures.

Labor will support the class size initiative announced by the Chief Minister in response to sustained community pressure and funded in the budget. We support budget provisions for early intervention programs at schools-though, at an additional $200,000 a year, not much was put in, and there are continuing staff cuts in colleges. But we question, as do the teachers, whether the government has got its priorities right in putting more money into getting kids to the school gates rather than into education programs that will redress the territory's slide from pre-eminence.

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