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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2078 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The other really interesting question on the issue of equity is that of how we are raising revenue. There have been recommendations for some years, as I recall, that a good, hard look be taken at fees and taxes in the ACT to see how regressive they are, but we are yet to have the government being willing to take on that task. I think that was also a recommendation of the poverty task force. If it was not, it has certainly come out from ACTCOSS and other social commentators which have an interest in the question of equity in revenue raising and regressive revenue measures.

The school buses proposal is another example of a poorly thought out initiative in terms of the impact on people who are disadvantaged. Our public school system has a very strong user-pays component in it and I think that needs to be addressed by a government which is seriously interested in equity issues. This government often focuses on the notion of choice to justify what it is doing. It is an argument that conservative governments often use. If this government is seriously looking at choice, I think that it should go beyond choice as to the method of travelling to school.

MR SPEAKER: Would you like your next 10 minutes?

MS TUCKER: Yes, thank you. The government should look at how the choices available to students in our public school are affected by their ability to pay. That would be a really interesting exercise. If that were done, we might find that a government that was seriously interested in choice would choose to put more money into ensuring that this user-pays component that has crept more and more into our public schools is actually pulled right back. We have had often enough a debate in this place about contributions on subject levies as if there are two different things, one voluntary and one that is not. We hear from the government that the contributions definitely are all voluntary, but anybody who has talked about it to somebody with a child in school or who has a child in school here knows that there is incredible pressure on parents to pay subject levies. There is seen to be a different category there.

That does have an impact on people who do not feel that they can afford to pay the levies for particular subjects. The subjects which cost quite a lot are often the creative subjects and the creative subjects are often the subjects that will actually give children who are struggling in the school system the sense of wellbeing, achievement and self-esteem with the school system. Often, because of the nature of the schooling that we provide, the self-esteem of a student is pretty much sorted out in terms of how the students perform academically. If students are not doing well in that way, they can easily start going downhill, with all the problems that occur subsequently for any human beings who feel bad about themselves. It is really important to have options in schools for students who are not going to be doing particularly well academically that will make them feel good about themselves and make them have a good experience at school, which might mean that they will stay there till year 12 or might mean that they will not decide to find a way of feeling good about themselves that is socially destructive and destructive to themselves.

In the general area of appropriations for the Chief Minister's Department, I have a few comments to make on business, tourism and the arts. The government's broad-brush approach to business, tourism and the arts makes clear the values that the government treasures. I have to say that the interests of business are obviously pretty high up there. I would not argue that having a viable business sector is not fundamental to the economic

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