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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2357 ..

MR BERRY: Okay, so Mr Rugendyke thinks that we do not need $5.3 million for schools this year; we only need it next year. The campaign goes on to talk about support for students at risk, support on literacy and numeracy and support for information technology. That is what the $27 million could produce. I am trying to take $5.3 million out of this line and save it for classrooms. We are on about stopping this government spending it on free school buses.

Mr Stefaniak will bound to his feet, I am sure, and say that the figures do not add up as the money cannot be taken out in relation to buses. Yes, it can be done. I am going to try to do that, too, and it is quite appropriate to do so. Mr Smyth will say that that would mean that ACTION would not get new gas-powered buses. Mr Smyth and Mr Stefaniak were at pains to tell us that the new buses were for free school travel, not for anything else, and the money is needed for those buses. I reckon that it is needed more in classrooms.

The problem for Mr Smyth is that over the last few years he has put on hold the bus replacement program. It will be a legacy for a future government to deal with. Mr Smyth has abandoned the post, so he should not give us such claptrap about these buses for free school travel being the saviour of ACTION. The real problem for ACTION is that Mr Smyth has dropped the ball and ACTION has had to put on hold for some years a bus replacement program. That is the reason it has not got such buses. The reason will not be the disappearance of money that the government put aside in a flashy exercise to attract attention to the buying of a few buses for free school travel. Before you get up, Mr Stefaniak, I advise you to abandon that one, because the line is here to be meddled with by this Assembly to make sure that the money goes into the classrooms.

Mr Corbell: Unless they have already spent it without its being appropriated.

MR BERRY: They have a history of committing themselves unlawfully to spending on things. They have a bit of form on that.

MR SPEAKER: Recidivists, you could say.

MR BERRY: Yes, they are recidivists. They have a bit of form on that. We will wait to see what happens on that score, but we will not back off on our commitment to schools.

Mr Speaker, throughout this entire debate the government has been saying to us, "What are you going to do after the next election?" I will tell you what we are going to do. What is left over we will put into classrooms. We will need somebody else to help us. I think the community is going to treat Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke badly over this scheme, because the community recognises a bit of doublespeak when it sees it. That is a bit of a pity from my point of view because when I saw their positive comments about this issue I thought that we might be right here. Then I saw their comments about refusing to alter a line in the budget and I thought that perhaps they would support me in delaying the expenditure of this money until after the election, but they are so rusted on to this government that they are prepared to abandon a principle which would provide better outcomes for kids in schools. Those students are our future and we cannot afford to miss an opportunity like this one.

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