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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2361 ..

At 5.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MR STEFANIAK: I would not have qualified to go to Narrabundah, nor would I have wanted to because it would have taken me more time to try to get a bus than to walk to school. I think that may well even be true of students who came from other parts of Canberra. A lot of students from the Woden Valley came to our school by bus. I cannot remember if those bus trips were free; I do not think they were. I think students paid 2 cents or 5 cents. But, certainly, I can remember that all of my colleagues who lived in Red Hill would walk to and from school. I am not even too sure whether buses were available then-they may or may not have been. But certainly a lot of students walk to and from school.

When I drive down Boswell Drive and Florey Drive I see many students from my electorate walking every day to Ginninderra District High School. It is just something that students do. If you live close to a school there is no need to catch a bus.

Mr Berry misses the point when he says that 75 per cent miss out. I really wonder how many of those 75 per cent would really want something like this. I think what they will appreciate is Mr Smyth's one-zone proposal. The families whose children travel by bus will certainly appreciate this arrangement. There are a lot of battlers out there who will appreciate this and who are very worried by the Labor Party moves.

Mr Berry talks about a run on children changing schools. We have absolutely nothing to show that. I think the history of Canberra shows that people very much like their neighbourhood schools. We have not seen very many of those schools close. Numbers have gone down over the years, and that may well continue for a little while before they go up in line with demographic changes.

People go to schools for reasons other than just travel considerations. Apart from students who might go to a certain primary school because they can be dropped off by their parents on their way to work, I cannot think of too many people who have ever said to me, "We go to that school because it is easier to get there." I do not think the availability of a free bus service would be a major reason for people leaving a school. I just do not think that comes into it.

There are a lot of reasons why people pick certain schools. Canberra people in particular are very choosy about what schools they pick. But I think you really are stretching it to the limit and drawing a real longbow if you think this is going to have any great effect on neighbourhood schools. People go to schools for a lot of reasons but I do not think this is necessarily one of them.

What the initiative will do, however, is assist those people who, for whatever reason, go to a school which is some distance from home, who do not have available to them other forms of transport and who are, in many instances, paying anything up to $60 a month per child to go to, say, a government college. That is a significant amount of money for battling families who have more than one child at school.

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