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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2354 ..

MR BERRY: You have your chance now, Dave; come on down. Let us see how courageous you are.

Let us look at the government system figures. I will just run through a few. We figure that about 90 per cent of the students in government schools will miss out on this previously unaffordable and forgotten promise, this vote-grabbing promise, or alleged promise, which has been put forward by this government. Because it was not a promise at the last election, it was promptly forgotten and the government did not want to hear about it, as people would have said, "You promised this last time. How can we believe you?" It was not a promise and was forgotten and they all gathered around and said, "We won't make that one again as it is unaffordable." But what did happen, of course, is that parents were hit with a revenue-grabbing double bus fare for kids who travelled across two zones.

The parents were angry about that and we campaigned against it. We said that we would do something about it, and that is what we are setting out to do. When we occupy the treasury bench after the next election, we will put what is left over from this plan into schools. We will put it into schools and we will put it back into a single-fare bus system. We will make it fairer for parents, but we will make sure that whatever is left over from this wasteful exercise by this government will go to students-not to just some students, but to as many students as possible. We will not be selective about it. We will make sure that it goes to as many students as possible. We are going to wreck this idea of subsidising only a few because you think you can buy their votes.

Let us look at some of the government sector schools. At Ainslie primary, for example, there have been 46 bus pass applications from a school enrolment of 428, 10 per cent. Charnwood primary has 185 students enrolled and there have been five bus pass applications, so 180 students will miss out. Let us take one from Mr Rugendyke's electorate. At Florey primary there have been seven bus pass applications from the 230 students enrolled, that is, 223 students will not get any support at all from this proposal, but Mr Rugendyke will not vote for my amendments in this regard. He would not vote for me yesterday. Are you prepared to see those 223 students miss out, Mr Rugendyke? You could not be happy to see them miss out.

In fact, Mr Rugendyke said that this proposal is not a very good idea and the government should take this money out of the free school bus system. He is on the public record as saying that it should be taken out of the free school bus system and put back into classes. I agree with him. We are as one on this, Mr Rugendyke. Mr Osborne does not think that it is a good idea, either, nor should he. We are together on that, but Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke will not vote for their principles on this proposal. I am starting to go off the pair of them. I want to see some in-principle voting in this place from the pair of them. It is late in the electoral cycle and I want to see them stand up for their principles.

Some would say that we have already seen them stand up for their principles. If you ask them when that was they will say it was with last year's budget. They stood up for their principles then because they did not want drug-affected people given a haven of safety to inject dangerous drugs. They did not want that to happen and save a few lives because they thought it was a bad thing. As I think I said yesterday, Mr Osborne said in relation to the free school bus proposal that it was a tax concession. To draw an analogy, if that

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