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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2363 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

system that allows parents to send their children to any school in the ACT at no cost in respect of transport?

Surely, at the very least, a good government, a wise government, a considered government, would have asked, "What is the impact of this initiative on our government school system, because that is the system we run?" You would have thought the realisation would have started to seep into the government's consciousness that you have to make decisions that are well informed and based on evidence, good advice and good analysis. You would have thought that would have seeped through from issues like Bruce Stadium, in respect of which the Auditor-General came back yesterday and said, "You mob over there made decisions worth millions and millions of dollars without any properly documented analysis or advice."

You would have thought, in the new enlightened era of the Humphries government, as the Chief Minister would have us believe, that when it came to this budget you would operate a little differently, you would consider the initiative in the context of its overall impact, and you would take a strategic and considered whole-of-government view. But, no, as the Estimates Committee pointed out and as the estimates process revealed, you did not. Thank goodness for the estimates process because it enabled us to properly examine the basis on which this decision was made. There was no analysis of the impact this process would have on the government school system and on enrolments at neighbourhood schools.

But it gets worse than that. In this initiative the government did not focus on looking at where the need was greatest, at who should be deserving of this sort of support. I guess you could say that this is tax relief, but it is untargeted tax relief. As I said yesterday, you can live in Mugga Way, with four garages and lots of nice cars in the driveway, and send your kids to school for free if they are eligible, just as someone who lives in Lyons in a little ex-govvie can sent their kids to school for free if they are eligible. How equitable is that? How effective is that in terms of use of government money? The government might think that is really good because maybe it will help at least elements of their constituency. But it is not a targeted measure. It is not a measure which addresses need. Instead, as Mr Berry has just said, it is an attempt to curry favour in the lead-up to the election.

I can understand why parents whose children are eligible have applied. If there is a benefit, of course people will take advantage of it. People will do this because they think it will help. But we in this Assembly and the community overall have to look at the broader picture. We have to decide where the priorities should be. Labor is saying, "Let's make sure those priorities are on better delivery of services in the education sector, not on a measure that will assist only a substantial minority of users of that system."

Finally on the free school bus initiative: it would be interesting to learn if the government has committed any expenditure to the purchase of the new gas powered buses. Have they entered into any sort of contractual arrangement for the supply of these vehicles? Have they committed the territory in any way prior to the budget being passed? I would be very interested to learn of their approach to this matter because they are selling that point pretty hard. So my view would be: let us check it out. Let us find out if they have gone as far as to try to lock in this initiative as much as possible, to the extent of even trying to

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